Azle Residents Take Quake Concerns To Austin
AZLE (CBSDFW.COM) - A group of around 50 residents from Azle are heading to Austin on Tuesday. They are frustrated with the dozens of minor earthquakes which have been rocking their community since November. Unable to get answers from their small city in North Texas, the group is taking their concerns to the state capital.
The day-long trip has been called 'Shake the Ground in Austin,' and Azle residents hope that it will show state leaders how upset they are about the recent string of earthquakes in their area.
The group is made up mostly of people who live in Azle -- from a 11-year-old boy who said that he has been studying fracking, to those who have lived in the North Texas city for several decades.
Earlier this month, some 800 people packed into Azle High School when officials from the Texas Railroad Commission visited the city to listen to citizen concerns. Many of those who attended, however, left upset that no solutions were being discussed.
Some of those people who attended that meeting are among those heading to Austin. They will sit in a TRC meeting and then meet the staff members of several state lawmakers.
From damaged homes to concerns about water and air quality, the Azle group believes that there is a connection between earthquakes and nearby fracking injection wells. They want to have two of those injection sites shut down, at least temporarily. "We're bringing in waste and injecting it down there below our water system," said Azle resident William Hoffman. "And with it shaking like this, it's just a matter of time before it gets in our water system."
The group is hoping to halt the fracking until they have more answers about what exactly could be causing the earthquakes.
"I would hope to say, just stop it," said 11-year-old Robert Caney. "I'm tired of these earthquakes and I'm very scared for the younger kids that are still too young to learn what fracking is."
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