Ernst’s water tank, 185 gallons, in front of two of Encana/Ovintiv (now Lynx)’s many noisy law-violating shit ass ugly compressors (complete with Encana’s rotting falling over straw bale wall – propaganda to make the community and media think the company was mitigating it’s illegal noise). The company intentionally illegally frac’d my community’s drinking water aquifers, rendering them life threatening with gas and other contaminants, with fraud, cover-up, lies and bullying (towards the harmed, not the law violator) by politicos and regulators, and lies and punishments dolled out by judges.
Dylan Baddour@DylanBaddour Dec 18, 2023:
The Pecos Enterprise today reports an eruption of “toxic water” in the Permian Basin
“The ground split open for some 200-300 feet and toxic water began flowing out”
“Toxic water is almost certainly flowing into he Permian’s three underlying fresh water aquifers”
“Catastrophic”
Alison Cook@alisoncook:
Sounds like a nightmare scenario
Richard Pravata@pravata:
but at least the oil executives are rich.
Ground fractured, toxic water flowing, near 2022 blowout by Smokey Briggs, Dec 14, 2023, Pecos Enterprise
On January 2, 2022 a 200-foot-high geyse of contaminated water containing salts, hydrocarbons and other toxins, erupted from an abandoned oil well in Crane County.
The well, known as CT-112, is located about 12 miles east of the Ward-Crane county line along SH329, and is a few hundred yards south of the highway.
Railway Commission records indicate the well, owned by Chevron, was eventually controlled, and the flow of an estimated 40,000 barrels of toxic water per day was stopped.
Last week, about 400 yards from the CT-112 well, the ground split open for some 200-300 feet and toxic water began flowing out of the fracture.
Railway Commission candidate Bill Burch says that this event is a catrastrophe for both West Texas and the oil and gas industry. What about the landowners, families and businesses that rely on the aquifers there?
“From a well-control perspective, once the ground is fractured to the surface, and the flow is outside of the well bore, you cannot fix it. You cannot control it. It is the worst possible scenario. The best you can do is build levees around it to contain the water, and then, plug every well within at least a half mile. I estimate hundreds to thousands of acres will be flooded.” And permanently destroyed for food production, livestock grazing or citizen living.
As well, the toxic water is almost certainly flowing into the Permian’s three underlying fresh water aquifers – the Pecos Valley Alluvial, the Santa Rosa and the Rustler – the only sources of fresh water in the Permian Basin.
“This is a catastrophic event for the oil and gas industry as well. Nothing worse for the industry could have happened and the Railroad Commission is 100% responsbile. This proves what many of us have been saying – that the risk to the groundwater is imminent.
“The Railroad Commission failed to adequately regulate the injection of produced water, and this (blowout) is way ahead of anyone’s best estimate of time to failure at surface by decades.”
“I get that the area involved is not the entire Permian Basin, but this proves events are accelerating in Reeves, Pecos, Ward and Crane Counties, and there is no easy fix to this,” he said.
Burch said that simply plugging wells would not solve the problem as the pressurized water would simple escape through the next closest abandoned well, of which there are there are thousands, or simply fracture to surface, creating its own route of release.
“The Railroad Commission is about to have its first Superfund site,” Burch said referring to the land around the CT-112 well.ll
By “Superfund” Burch was referring to the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), which is informally called “Superfund,” and was established in 1980 by the federal government to deal with contaminated sites.
Burch said the only possible explanation for both the original blowout, and now …
Burch said that in his opinion all three current Railroad Commission Commissioners have been criminally negligent Just like AER is in Alberta in how they have managed the industry.
“So far the Railroad Commission’s solution has been to ignore this problem, and to private the profits and socialize the liabilitites. We cannot keep ignoring this. The seismic activity, the blowouts and frac hits, this will eventually cause the death of the oil and gas industry if we do not fix it,” he said.Will be too late by then.
Burch pointed out that in Oklahoma, when oil and gas related seismic activity threatened the Cushing OIl Storage (the largest tank farm in the world), the state shut-in 75 percent of oil production in the state – for two years – until the seismic activity cooled off.It didn’t cool off though. See below.
“Texas cannot afford to shut in 75 percent of its oil and gas economy,” he said.
“Texas needs the oil and gas industry. I am a pro-oil-and-gas Democrat. Synergy Synergy Synergy!I have worked in the industry my entire adult life. Oil and gas make up eight percent of our GDP. Low cost energy drives everything else. This is about trying to save the industry before these idiots crash it,” he said.
Burch said in his view there are three broad issues facing Texas and the Railroad Commission.
“First we have to deal with the legacy stuff – the old wells. This has to be resolved by the industry, not passed along to the tax payer. Second, we have to solve the saltwater disposal problem. There are solution, just not as cheap as the 38-cents a barrel it costs to inject it. Third, the future of Texas hinges on oil and gas production. There is no getting rid of fossil fuels. Wowzo, is Burch ever in for a shock, or ten. We are going to see a tripling of our energy grid in the next 77 years and much of that will have to be supplied by fossil fuels.Nope, it does not. Wind, solar and storage, and most importantly, teaching the masses to stop wasting energy would do the trick, along with dramatically stopping baby making (rape religions like catholic church and evangelical repuglicans/Harper reformaconners will freak, too bad) until the earth has a chance to rejuvenate from abuses by humanity. There are big decisions being made by the Railroad Commission affecting our future, and I want to lead those solutions.”Needs to be a non synergized person, not Burch.
@TXsharon Methane Hunter@TXsharon:
This is fairly typical in the #oilfield. Often they cover up the evidence rather than reporting and cleaning it up. Self reporting doesn’t work.
Horrifying on an environmental level and a health level.
BarbaraAnn@SusanRi49904754:
Terrible.
We have healthy solutions
Solar, wind and batteriesAnd dramatically reduce human baby making. Every new human born, demands more frac’ing, toxic pollution and extreme harm to ground and surface water. Unlimited population growth on a finite planet is why we have frac insanity.
Refer also to:
2015: Cushing, Oklahoma: 4.5M earthquake ignores newly imposed frac quake prevention rules
… An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.5 struck near the U.S. crude oil hub of Cushing, Oklahoma on Saturday, just days after regulators imposed new rules meant to prevent temblors in the area and said more changes were possible.
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, ordered companies on Sept. 18 to shut or reduce usage of five saltwater disposal wells around the north-central Oklahoma city of Cushing.
… On Sunday, some people on social media, fearing a quake could cause a fire or explosion in Cushing in the future, were already calling for tougher rules.
“This needs to stop,” read a comment at NPR’s StateImpact. “The injection wells & fracking are wrecking Cushing.”
2016: 5.1 M: Oklahoma frac waste quakes rumbling bigger & bigger as USGS predicted