Disrupting the Peace: On a B.C. ranch, fracking earthquakes rattle a way of life

FILE -- An attendee walks past hydraulic fracking equipment at the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary, Alta., Tuesday, June 7, 2016. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh)

Bo Hedges' parents have lived on their ranch north of Fort St. John, B.C., for close to 50 years, running the Dead Horse Creek Cattle Company on the property where a natural spring bubbles up near their log home.

It sounds peaceful — but Hedges said earthquakes triggered by natural gas industry operations are “stressing them out completely” as the couple in their 80s wonders “when’s the big one going to hit.”

Hedges lives in Fort St. John, but he was visiting the ranch when an earthquake struck a few years ago. “It felt like a big truck hit the house,” he said. “The whole house just shook and there was a giant bang and woke everybody up.”

A series of at least four earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 3.1 to 4.3 have struck the Peace region of northeastern B.C. recently, between Feb. 8 and 12.

The first two were “suspected to have been induced,” Earthquakes Canada said in a bulletin, while the British Columbia Energy Regulator has confirmed fracking caused the most powerful quake overnight on Feb. 11.

Also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracking involves injecting liquid and sand into drill holes under high pressure, causing the rock to crack and release trapped gas.

The Feb. 11 quake was strong enough to be felt in Fort St. John — 105 kilometres southeast of the epicentre — where Hedges said he felt his apartment building shift.

Hedges said his family is frustrated by what he described as a lack of transparency, proactive outreach and communication by B.C.‘s energy regulator during a “continuous escalation” of fracking activity near his parents' ranch.

Since the largest quake, he said the flow of the spring that is the lifeblood of the ranch owned by his parents, Bill and Marilyn Hedges, had slowed to a relative trickle.

At its peak, the spring typically flowed at 10 or 11 litres per minute, but Bo Hedges said it’s down to two, “barely enough to water the house, let alone the animals.”

Hedges suspects other direct impacts on the cattle — he said his brother, Matt, who lives and works on the ranch, called the energy regulator the morning after the Feb. 11 quake to report two calves had been born slightly prematurely.

Hedges said the twins marked the start of a “phenomenal” run of calves. The ranch had been seeing three to five born each day in the middle of its calving season, but found itself caring for about 40 born in the two days after the quake, he said.

The family started feeling tremors more regularly at the ranch about five years ago, he said.

“And then in the last, say, three years, it’s been significant.”

Brent Ward, a professor in the earth sciences department at Simon Fraser University, said there is low-level natural seismicity in northeastern B.C.

“But the amount and the magnitude (has) increased because of fracking,” he said. “The real question is how big can they get?”

The B.C. Energy Regulator said in a statement that its tracking showed some annual variability in the number of quakes of magnitude 3 or higher over the past decade.

But “there is no indication that there is an increasing trend in these higher magnitude events” in the region, it said.

The regulator has confirmed the Feb. 11 quake was caused by fracking by Tourmaline Oil, one of Canada’s largest natural gas producers.

The company suspended fracturing activity after the quake and is not planning a restart at that well pad, the regulator said.

Hedges said the family met with a representative of the company. Tourmaline did not respond to questions from The Canadian Press.

Ward said natural springs stem from fractures in bedrock that may shift during an earthquake, causing changes to the flow of the water. A magnitude 7.7 quake affected hot springs in the Haida Gwaii archipelago off B.C.‘s north coast in 2012, he noted.

On the Dead Horse Creek ranch, Hedges said his family is waiting until the ground thaws to assess whether their spring’s normal flow may be restored, or if they will have to drill a well.

In the meantime, the ranch’s cattle are drinking from a “safety net” reservoir.

Hedges said the family had not yet contacted the energy regulator about the disruption the spring, but planned to.

The regulator said it had not received any complaints related to the early birthing of calves after the Feb. 11 quake, but if that were to happen, it would visit the site if necessary.

“Upon reviewing the evidence we would determine if any compliance actions would be required to prevent or mitigate any additional impacts,” the statement said.

The regulator noted the Surface Rights Board is in place to help resolve compensation disputes between companies and landowners.

‘WE’RE STILL PEOPLE UP THERE’

Hedges said it took a few days for the cattle to settle down after the Feb. 11 quake.

“We get bears and wolves and cougars and all sorts of things wandering through the herd and maybe stirring them up a little bit. This was above and beyond that.”

It’s a “worrisome” phenomenon, Hedges added. “You don’t want to have a cow that gets angry and hurts someone and hurts itself.”

Ronaldo Cerri, a professor at the University of B.C. whose research focuses on fertility in cattle, said there is limited scientific literature on potential effects of earthquakes on livestock.

It’s hard to draw a causal relationship between quakes and calving, he said.

But if the animals felt the quake, it wouldn’t be surprising if they were restless and stressed, and there is a link between stress and calving, Cerri said in an interview.

“Stress and calving are indeed, they are tied together,” he said. “Even the natural way in which a cow triggers the beginning of labour is because there’s a system inside the fetus that starts to produce … cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and that triggers a whole cascade of events that leads to the calving process.”

When quakes have affected the ranch in the past, Hedges said his family often contacted the natural gas companies directly rather than going to the regulator.

Representatives of Texas-headquartered ConocoPhillips had “paid for this and that” over the years, he said, including a home inspection as a record against any future damage.

A representative of ConocoPhillips said in a statement the safety and well-being of the community surrounding its operations is a “top priority.”

It said the company is committed to being a “responsible community partner” and has representatives in the area who work with residents to address their concerns.

Hedges said another company, Calgary-based Yoho Resources, had plans for drilling and fracking close to the ranch this summer.

The operation is set to take place “right across the valley from where the ranch house is, kind of within eyeshot,” he said.

Typically, more than 15 companies conduct fracking across the Peace region, where the regulator maintains a system of 35 seismometers.

Six firms operate within the newly created North Montney seismic monitoring area, where the Dead Horse Creek ranch is located.

The B.C. Energy Regulator issued the North Montney monitoring order on Feb. 13, saying it was “strengthening” its oversight of induced seismicity.

Both the new order and a pre-existing order for an area nearby require natural gas companies to immediately halt operations if they trigger a seismic event of a certain magnitude.

In the existing Kiskatinaw seismic monitoring area, the threshold is a magnitude 3 quake within five kilometres of fracking operations.

But in North Montney the threshold is magnitude 4, leading Hedges' family to wonder why it’s higher.

Hedges also wonders whether his family’s concerns about the quakes are being taken seriously.

“The public in these rural areas … we’re still people up there,” he said.

“We shouldn’t be feeling the brunt of these activities, and it seems like it takes something massive … for the regulator to make some change.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2025.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press