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.
For years, the Texas agency that regulates the oil and gas extraction industry has refrained from putting forth an explanation for the blowout phenomenon, even as a chorus of local landowners alleged that wastewater injections were driving the flows of gassy brine onto the surface of their properties since about 2022.
Injection disposal is currently the primary outlet for the tremendous amount of oilfield wastewater, also known as produced water, that flows from fracked oil wells in West Texas. Thousands of injection wells dot the Permian Basin, each reviewed and permitted by Texas’ oilfield regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission.
Oil producers are exploring alternatives — a small portion of produced water is reused in fracking, and Texas is in the process of permitting facilities that will treat produced water and release it into rivers and streams. Still, underground injection remains the cheapest and most popular method by far.
A scientific connection has solidified between the practice of injection disposal and the increasing strength and frequency of earthquakes nearby. In the Permian Basin, a steady crescendo of tremors peaked last November with magnitude 5.4 earthquake, the state’s strongest in 30 years, triggering heightened restrictions on injections in the area.
