{"id":68630,"date":"2024-06-13T19:57:31","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T00:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68630"},"modified":"2024-06-13T19:57:31","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T00:57:31","slug":"another-blowout-adds-to-mystery-of-permian-basin-water-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=68630","title":{"rendered":"Another Blowout Adds to Mystery of Permian Basin Water Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Another Blowout Adds to Mystery of Permian Basin Water Pressure<\/a><\/h3>\n

Water is bursting from another West Texas oil well, continuing a troubling trend.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Water
Water flows from an orphaned oil well on Schuyler Wight\u2019s ranch in Pecos County, Texas. Credit: Courtesy of Schuyler Wight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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In recent years, Schuyler Wight has noticed a growing number of abandoned oil wells coming back to life, gurgling fluids to the surface of his West Texas ranch. Last week he found the biggest one yet.<\/p>\n

Gassy water was gushing from the ground and down a quarter mile of roadway before it drained into a pasture on a remote corner of his land.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s by far flowing more than any other,\u201d Wight said. \u201cIt\u2019s getting worse, there\u2019s no question about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest in a string of mysterious water features in the arid Permian Basin, the nation\u2019s top producing oil field, that regulators have been unable to explain.<\/p>\n

Last year, an eruption of salty water\u00a0swamped several acres<\/a>\u00a0on Wight\u2019s cousin\u2019s ranch, triggering a multi-million-dollar cleanup. In 2022, a geyser shot up from a well in Crane County, then another spouted on the Antina Cattle Ranch. Nearby, a large pond of gassy groundwater has become a permanent feature called Boehmer Lake.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 oilfield regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, has yet to offer an explanation for what is driving so much water to the surface. After the massive cleanup effort in January, an\u00a0agency press release<\/a>\u00a0said it was \u201ccontinuing to investigate\u201d the cause. The Railroad Commission did not immediately respond to a query.<\/p>\n

Wight, a fourth generation West Texas rancher, has watched this problem grow for years. He said the RRC has plugged about ten old wells leaking onto the surface of his property. But each time they do, another one starts flowing.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another Blowout Adds to Mystery of Permian Basin Water Pressure Water is bursting from another West Texas oil well, continuing a troubling trend. Water flows from an orphaned oil well on Schuyler Wight\u2019s ranch in Pecos County, Texas. Credit: Courtesy of Schuyler Wight In recent years, Schuyler Wight has noticed a growing number of abandoned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[30936,1278,20774,866,34708],"class_list":["post-68630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-inside-climate-news","tag-oil-industry","tag-permian-basic","tag-water","tag-well-blowout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68631,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68630\/revisions\/68631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}