“In fact, it’s been driving us crazy, frankly, that people keep using it in the press,” Hornback told lawmakers during a hearing.

Hornback and fellow SMU researchers found that wastewater injection wells, not fracking itself, are behind the rise in earthquakes in North Texas. Oil and gas companies take brine and other substances out of the ground when extracting fuels and then inject the waste from that process back into the ground.

The huge increase in oil and gas drilling has forced billions of wastewater underground in recent years. The EPA and states regulate the disposal of wastewater into underground wells — before 1985 companies could dispose of this water in state waterways.

This story originally appeared on Daily Caller News Foundation. Read the full story here.