Well Blowouts in West Texas Flood Landscape with High Levels of Salt Water

Well blowouts, involving abandoned wells from the oil and gas industry, are flooding some areas of West Texas with high levels of salt water, according to recent reports. The challenge includes containing or plugging thousands of leaking wells across the state, affecting agricultural lands and even local ecosystems. Aside from Texas, wells abandoned by oil and gas companies are becoming an environmental threat across the United States.

An abandoned well is defined by experts as a well that has either lost its function or is no longer in use for producing oil and gas. Distinct from a traditional 'well' constructed by drilling a hole into the ground to store water for a community, the modern wells were constructed during the late stage of the world's oil and gas industry, according to research. The threat from oil and gas well blowouts is the leaking of greenhouse gases, including methane.

West Texas Well Blowouts

Some of the notable well blowouts in West Texas occurred in December 2023 and January 2022, prompting scientists to search for answers as to why abandoned wells in the state's Crane and Pecos counties to come back to life, a non-profit organization reported in late February 2024. According to the report, the blowouts involve thousands of wells left behind by oil and gas companies that drilled across the state for over a century.

The well blowout in early December contained excessive salt that it decimated the soil in its surrounding area, including a ranch in Crane County owned by Bill Wight. The December 2023 incident is the latest man-made disaster caused by abandoned oil and water wells across Texas, the report adds. Furthermore, the issue also highlights the challenge faced by Texas to map and plug thousands of orphaned wells, of which some are not registered.

Also Read: Leaky Gas Wells, Not Fracking, Are to Blame For Dirty Groundwater, Say Experts

Oil and Gas Wells

Plugging and abandoning oil and gas wells are conducted when the structure "reaches the end of its useful life or becomes a dry hole," according to the US government agency Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The operation includes activities that also pose risks to involved workers on the site. However, there are instances where these holes could become active again, just like in the case of the West Texas well blowouts.

On its website, OSHA provides some of the tasks involved in plugging and abandoning oil and gas wells. Despite implemented procedures to secure these structures, different parts of the US still consist of more than 1 million abandoned wells, left by oil and gas companies that ceased operations. This figure does not include undocumented wells related to the oil and gas industry.

According to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) in 2021, the estimated number of undocumented "orphaned wells" across the country ranges between 310,000 and 800,000, as cited by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).