American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2015 - 154

Pausing before a panel discussion about the consequences and considerations of the
lesser prairie chicken's classification as threatened under the Endangered Species Act
are from left, Doug Lewis of GSI Engineering; Ken White, president of Wichita-based
White Exploration Inc.; and Rick Griffin with the law firm Martin Pringle. During his
remarks, Griffin observed that the bird's population was growing in its four habitat
states that had seen more rainfall in 2015.

chickens. However, aerial surveys cover
a wider range in less time and can be
better, depending on county road conditions and setup.
He also cautioned operators doing surveys or questionnaires to ensure landowners or field personnel didn't misidentify
greater prairie chickens for their lesser
cousins. "The two species are remarkably
similar in appearance," he said. "Their
habitat and range can overlap, and they
can interbreed. So it's very easy to get
the two confused."

Due Diligence
White recommended that operators
and contractors servicing well sites be
"on the same page." Everyone on site
needs to be aware of the possibility of
LPC habitat, he said, because violations
won't be issued immediately.
"Notices may be issued a few months
down the road, and you may not even remember the details or circumstances,"
he clarified. "Maybe you didn't even
take a bird nor have a violation, but you
wouldn't be able to prove otherwise. So
document as much as possible, and form
your own best practices."
White pointed out that the easiest way
to violate a project agreement would be
to drive or operate loud machinery near
a lek during LPC mating season. He suggested putting signs on the gate or road
to the well site to restrict driving or loud
noises during certain hours.
Rick Griffin, a partner with Wichita's
Martin Pringle law firm, and chair of the
firm's Energy Law Practice Group, commented that, because an ESA listing had
both public and private enforcement components, if there was a violation, the
landowner was the one most likely to report it.

He recommended that anyone working
near a lek should "do your due diligence
on the front end. That way, if you do
have a violation, you will have documented
that you were doing everything necessary.
No one would be able to accuse you of
being careless."
White recommended that KIOGA
members neither fret about nor ignore
the issue completely. Rather, he suggested
companies continue formulating and following best practices. "Overall, I would
say it hasn't been as intimidating as we
thought it was going to be a year ago,"
he evaluated.

Shaking Kansas
In an afternoon technical session, KIOGA hosted a panel on seismicity trends,
investigations and solutions with representatives from the Kansas Geological
Survey and the Kansas Corporation Commission.
KGS Interim Director Rex Buchanan
said that until the past few years, Kansas
earthquakes had trended along the Hum-

154 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

From 1977 through 1989, the
Kansas Geological Survey
recorded a series of microearthquakes along the Humbolt Fault reports Interim Director Rex Buchanan. Nonetheless, he indicated during a
presentation on the second
day of KIOGA's 2015 annual
convention, Aug. 2-4 in Wichita,
that recent seismic events had
been more frequent and intense.

bolt Fault in eastern and northeastern
Kansas. For instance, from 1977 through
1989, he said the KGS recorded a series
of microearthquakes that registered under
4.0 on the Richter scale along the Humbolt
Fault. There also were low magnitude
earthquakes recorded around Hays, and
near the Kansas-Oklahoma border during
this time frame.
Buchanan pointed out that while there
had been seismic activity recorded earlier
in south-central Kansas, recent events
were greater in magnitude and more frequent.
Most 2014 seismic events occurred in
Harper and Sumner counties. Buchanan
confirmed there were 125-130 events of
at least a 2.5 magnitude. This included
the strongest earthquake ever recorded
in Kansas, he said: a 4.9 magnitude quake
in November 2014. "Most years, we
would have only one or two events with
a 2.5 magnitude or higher," he said. "But,
Kansas historically has been 'aseismic,'
so, as I like to say, it was under-instrumented."
By late July 2015, Buchanan reported
Kansas had experienced several more
earthquakes, including two outliers near
Sun City in Barber County. However, he
pointed out the events' overall number,
frequency and magnitude, as reported by
the U.S. Geological Survey, were trending
down since March.
In trying to determine whether recent
quakes were natural or induced, Buchanan
said KGS had concluded the location,
number and depth of Class II wastewater
injection wells had some correlation to
the events.
Ryan A. Hoffman, director of the
KCC's Oil & Gas Conservation Division,
pointed out Harper and Sumner counties'
number of injection wells and overall
volumes increased 10-fold from 2009 to
2014. Because of this correlation, he said
the KCC had established limits for disposal

American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2015

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