From left to right, Railroad Commission Chair Christi Craddick and fellow commissioners Wayne Christian and Jim Wright at a commission hearing in Austin on Nov. 30, 2021.State regulators on Monday released their draft rules for what to do with all the hazardous oilfield waste that’s left over once a well is drilled.
“For those who think this is my rule — what Jim Wright wants — that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Wright said. “Even before I came to office, [commission] staff knew we really needed to take a hard look at Rule 8.”since 1984 “With all due respect to our friends on the environmental NGO side, they don't know what the field application is; they don’t understand what operators are literally doing day in and day out,” he said. “We all want robust environmental standards.”
In recycling, the mud can be cleaned and used for more drilling, rocks and gravel can be used to build roads and some of the less-contaminated water can be removed for other uses. However, “produced water” is most often injected back into the earth under a different permit, a method that has caused an
Pilsner says the facility ruined their sense of peace: Bright lights shine from it at night. There’s constant beeping from vehicles backing up and often the wafting stink of petroleum, insecticides and what he describes as a smell like skunks. He no longer wants to open the windows and he worries about the waste pits' liners leaking and contaminating the area’s groundwater.
First: Ron Pilsner stands near the cistern where he stores well water on his property near Nordheim. The land has been in his family for over a century and sits next to a recently-built oil waste facility. Last: For the past few years, a citizen's group has been checking the water and soil quality in the area with testing kits.
The draft rules also introduce an option for companies to create pilot programs for their waste: Instead of dumping it in pits or recycling it, companies could propose alternative recycling methods not covered by the rules. Critics also point out that the draft rules don’t spell out the penalties when pits leak or operators violate the rules of their permit. Ramon, the commission spokesperson, said that more details on fines would be available in the formal rule proposal and would likely be similar to existing regulations.
In an interview, Wright said that campaign fundraising was a “necessary evil” to be in politics, but that campaign donations don’t impact his decisions on the Railroad Commission and that he makes that clear to donors.in an upset, Wright’s staff turned to the waste rules, internal documents show. An investigative watchdog group called Documented obtained copies of the documents through public records requests and shared them with the Tribune.
Mark Henkhaus, a consultant and former Railroad Commission employee who chaired a regulatory committee for the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, sent an email in August 2022 to a commission staff member raising concerns that an oil waste company may have been trying to craft the rules to its benefit.
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