TOYAH — After a restless night of sleep, Elida Machuca texted her neighbor, searching for answers.
The air around her house in this West Texas town stunk of rotten eggs.
“Last night, about 1 a.m., it was so bad we couldn’t sleep,” she said. “We were feeling nauseous.”
“Should we be worried?”
Her neighbor, Brandie Baker, is Toyah’s water and wastewater administrator. She told Machuca she believed — thought could not be certain — the smell that has overwhelmed this town of 61 was coming from an abandoned well that exploded.
Nine days have passed since a furious torrent of water burst from a once-plugged well in Reeves County. Water is still shooting upwards, visible as far as seven miles away.
It is at least the eighth time since last October that chemical water has spewed from a well in West Texas without clear ownership, according to Sarah Stogner, an oil and gas attorney who for years has documented eruptions from orphaned wells.
About 4.6 million Americans live within a half mile of an often-called orphaned well, according to a 2023 study by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission has tallied 140,000 documented orphaned wells in the U.S. in 2024 report — 9,313 are in Texas. And the Permian Basin, which includes 61 West Texas counties, is filled with “all these ticking time bombs,” said Adam Peltz, director and senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund’s Energy Program.
The Railroad Commission of Texas defines orphaned wells as unplugged wells that have been inactive for a minimum of 12 months with no owner.
Continuous leaks and blowouts along the Permian Basin are worrying communities who fear the grimy brine could contaminate clean water sources. These wells also pose significant risks to human and environmental health by emitting toxic chemicals into the air such as methane, a powerful greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.
Despite spending $25 million in federal dollars to plug known orphaned wells and receiving $80 million more, the Railroad Commission of Texas has yet to find a way to plug them before they blow. The communities and people closest to the phenomenon are not equipped to deal with them.
So far, the commission has plugged 737 wells — or about 10% of all the estimated orphan wells in Texas. Critics say the agency is not working fast enough.
Residents are dealing with the consequences of decades of lax regulation and enforcement of cleaning up wells after they no longer produce oil or water. In Toyah, residents called 911 when they saw what appeared to be water shooting upwards from a distance at 11:45 a.m., on Oct. 2. Firefighters arrived at the scene 30 minutes later. With no way of containing the geyser, the firefighters left the scene.
“There’s not a whole lot we can do,” said Reeves County Emergency Services Chief Ronald Lee. “There’s nothing that we have the equipment to do.”
Lee said this was the first time the county’s emergency services department, which residents voted to establish in 2019, had encountered anything like it.
Jerry Bullard, the Reeves County emergency management coordinator, arrived at the scene after driving for about an hour to find the blowout. State inspectors arrived shortly after.
Bullard said the county must rely on oil and gas companies and the Railroad Commission, the agency that regulates the industry in Texas, to deal with environmental issues.
Bullard, who communicated daily with the commission, said the suspected hydrogen sulfide leaving the well only posed a threat within 100 yards of the blowout location. The toxins will not affect residents beyond that perimeter, he said.
The well, 11,331 feet deep, was drilled in 1961 by El Paso Gas Company. It came up dry, meaning there was no crude oil, and it was inactive for decades, Bullard said.
The Railroad Commission would not immediately confirm who owns the well. Kinder Morgan, a Houston-based energy company, is working to contain the blowout. The company said the blowout is unrelated to its nearby pipeline operations and is not impacting it.
It also was not clear why Kinder Morgan took on the task of containing the well.
On Tuesday, Kinder Morgan employees attempted to build pits to store the excess fluid that has erupted so far. Once they successfully divert the excess, workers will try to stop the blowout altogether, Bullard said. It was unclear Thursday if workers could stop the water flow. A second company was stationed in the area to monitor hydrogen sulfide levels to prevent workers from being exposed to the gas without protective equipment.
The company is days away from stopping the flow, Bullard said, adding the company is aiming to do so Saturday.
Experts say the blowouts like this one will persist as long as oil and gas production continues.
The Permian Basin produced 42% of U.S. oil in 2023. When oil or gas is extracted from the ground, water comes out, too. That liquid, known in the industry as produced water, is laced with hydrocarbons and naturally occurring toxins, including arsenic, radium and salt — chemicals that deteriorate human health.
Oil and gas operators recycle some of their wastewater to extract more fuels, but the rest is usually injected back underground. In some cases, these injections have been deep underground, but research has shown that deep water injection leads to increased earthquake or seismic activity. After scientists made that link, in some areas the commission directed oil and gas companies to store the water in shallow layers of the earth that are approximately a mile underground.
Katie Smye, a geologist with the Center for Injection and Seismicity Research at the University of Texas at Austin, estimated the amount of water injected into the shallow subsurface in the Delaware Basin, where Toyah is located, is the equivalent of seven million barrels a day — enough to fill about 450 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Water injection in the earth’s top layer has led to another problem: blowouts. Operators inject wastewater into the shallow layers and pressurize aquifers. That pressure builds up and pops, and a burst of water infused with toxic chemicals shoots up. Sometimes, it’s blowouts from wells — in others, it’s leaks.
Blowouts can happen in any well, whether plugged or not. Wells plugged decades ago are less likely to withstand the pressure and blow. Each blowout proves that the pressure underground is only growing, Smye said, adding that plugging wells is a band-aid. If a well is plugged, the water migrates elsewhere and pressure underground still exists.
Smye said the future challenge will be dealing with subsurface conditions and identifying areas under significant stress and pressure.
Dominic DiGiulio, a geoscientist who worked for 31 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said it’s important to identify potential places where the pressure is highest. Finding the pressure points before they burst could prevent the next blowout, which is a proactive measure that DiGiulio said the commission could take now.
“It’s easy to lose faith in state agencies when they’re just reactive and are not taking any proactive measures to prevent these [blowouts],” DiGiulio said. “And that’s not happening in Texas, it’s not happening elsewhere either.”
Industry groups were cautious to comment on the newest West Texas geyser.
The Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association declined to comment, saying they were waiting for more data. Ben Shepperd, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, said the organization supports state programs that provide funding to resolve issues related to legacy production.
It is not the first time that Reeves County officials experienced an environmental event related to saltwater disposal. Last November, a 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck the West Texas town. It was the second earthquake in just over a year when a 5.4-magnitude earthquake occurred near Reeves and Culberson counties. That was the largest quake in Texas recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey since 1995.
Bullard, the county’s emergency management coordinator, said he would like the Railroad Commission to revisit its saltwater disposal practices and, ideally, find other ways to dispose of the brine.
“That’s what I would like to see,” he said. “And I think that’s what the county would like to see.”
Residents near the site of the blowout try to continue their lives while others struggle with the pungent smells.
Nicholas Brightman, a gas station clerk in Toyah who commutes daily from Balmoreah, said he saw the blowout on his way to work last week. He figured it had been just another oil field incident. A customer who is an oil field worker explained to Brightman that it was water gushing from the ground. While he was unphased by the blowout, Brightman said he wished state or local officials alerted the residents in nearby Toyah.
Diana Tolet, who lives in the center of town, noticed the smell Thursday night. She and her husband, Wayne, turn on the air conditioner to diminish the scent. Before, the 66-year-old would have filed complaints to state regulators. These days, she said, she’s unsure how to do it.
Tolet said she wished that anyone, state or local officials, would reach out to the community with information about the incident.
“Everyone’s probably thinking, ‘Well, it’s a small town, so who cares?’ And that may not be what they think, but that’s what it feels like.”
Baker, the water administrator, has felt fatigued and nauseous all week. On Saturday, she got so dizzy that she was in bed for most of the day.
Machuca, Baker’s neighbor, now wears a disposable face mask to sleep. Throughout the week, the 51-year-old said she felt dizzy and nauseous. Her husband and two daughters have felt similar symptoms.
Last week, she filed a complaint with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental regulator. An investigator told her the sensors had not detected any pollutants in the air, but the agency said the complaint was still under investigation. She was later referred to the Railroad Commission, which told her the agency’s focus would be controlling the flow of the water and sealing the well before assessing the environmental damage.
But on Wednesday, Machuca felt so lightheaded she called an ambulance and went to the hospital. Doctors are running tests. She is waiting for the results.
Disclosure: Ben Shepperd, Environmental Defense Fund, Permian Basin Petroleum Association and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/10/west-texas-well-blowout-oil-gas-railroad-commission/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
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