Ranchers reported abandoned oil wells spewing wastewater. A new study blames fracking.

[SARose]

BY DYLAN BADDOUR, INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS, AND CARLOS NOGUERAS RAMOS, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
AUG. 7, 2024

Fracking wastewater, injected underground for permanent disposal, traveled 12 miles through geological faults before bursting to the surface through a previously plugged West Texas oil well in 2022, according to a new study from Southern Methodist University.

It’s the first study to draw specific links between wastewater injection and recent blowouts in the Permian Basin, the nation’s top producing oil field, where old oil wells have lately begun to spray salty water.

It raises concerns about the possibility of widespread groundwater contamination in West Texas and increases the urgency for oil producers to find alternative outlets for the millions of gallons of toxic wastewater that come from Permian Basin oil wells every day.

“We established a significant link between wastewater injection and oil well blowouts in the Permian Basin,” wrote the authors of the study, funded in part by NASA and published last month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The finding suggests "a potential for more blowouts in the near future,” it said.

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I see you standin' in the sun like an iron dinosaur
Got your tired head restin' on a west Texas floor
We were really something son back in our time
Yeah we broke a lot of hearts and we made a lot of dimes

Pump jack pump jack, pump a little more
'Cause daddy's cut it thin at the general store
Gentleman's dime don't float that long
Hey, pump jack pump before my good name's gone

You know I lost my baby to a wildcat dream
I was fueled by the crude and the gasoline
It's hard to settle down with a roustabout
That oil burns hot till the oil burns out

Pump Jack Toby Keith

Yeah! Drill baby drill! It don’t matter if we poison our groundwater. Stupid asses.

[Traildogbob]

1. Project 2025

And the supremacy court will put that right on the agenda sheet. Freedom!!!!!
Add Abbott to the solution team.

[SARose]

2. Yeah boy

I hope hope hope the Harris Walz ticket reaches down ballot and we elect more Dems to the Texas Legislature and boot Teddy boy.

[flying_wahini]

3. I went to a CC mtg 10 years ago about the oil companies there dumping fracking water into OLD wells.

This was in Conroe Texas. Lots of people in the area showed up to complain about it. These wells had either been abandoned or capped. (Like that mattered)
Don’t remember how many wells but several dozen.
There were oil company trucks from far away lined up everyday to dump in them. Every day for many many months. Maybe years (nobody was watching them).
We had FIVE children under in one neighborhood (The Woodlands) that had glioblastomas.
They came out and checked the water and said it passed. Nothing to see here, folks.
They didn’t do anything. Probably still dumping them there.
This was the Oil companies solution for getting rid of it.

Nothing has changed. WestTexas is right over the Oglala too.

[SARose]

4. Omg

Five children with glioblastoma? Dear Lord.

Yep the Ogallala water aquifer is shallow and runs under 8 states and supplies 80% of drinking water to over 2 million Americans.

But but but drill baby drill.