Wastewater Geysers, Land Cracks & Subsidence Prompt West TX Landowner To Sue 8 Oil Companies For Damages
A Permian Basin landowner alleges in a lawsuit that saltwater injection wells contributed to well blow-outs that caused extensive pollution on his property. Billy Wayne Meister Jr. filed the lawsuit in December in Crane County, Texas, district court. Meister alleges that the eight oil and gas companies named as defendants have failed to properly operate produced water injection wells, and also failed to properly plug old oil wells, and then abandoned them. The lawsuit alleges that these failures have led to “catastrophic impacts” on his property.
Produced water, also known as brine or saltwater, is a waste product of oil and gas drilling that contains high levels of chlorides and other harmful constituents. It is typically injected deep underground into disposal wells. In January 2022, a geyser of produced water erupted through an old well on Meister’s property in Crane County. It took months to control and plug. He subsequently documented “fissures” in the land through which produced water was flowing from underground.
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Another well blowout occurred just a mile away at a neighboring ranch owned by Bill Wight in December 2023. That month, according to the lawsuit, Meister toured his own ranch and “observed saltwater flowing to [the] surface through what appeared to be a new fissure in the ground.” Meister began to investigate other active and abandoned oil and gas wells on the ranch in the months that followed, according to the lawsuit. He found “visible compromised wells leaking saltwater, hydrocarbons and other waste contaminants.” In April 2024, another fissure opened and saltwater flooded a road, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks a judgement on liability for the pollution and monetary damages. Meister also seeks an end to the flow of oil and gas waste, proper plugging of abandoned and inactive wells, an investigation of impacted groundwater and soil and cleanup and restoration of the property. The lawsuit references a 2024 study by researchers at Southern Methodist University, previously reported by Inside Climate News and the Texas Tribune, that traced the cause of the 2022 blowout on the Meister ranch to a cluster of nine injection wells 12 miles to the northwest. The researchers used publicly available injection data and satellite imagery to show how the volume of wastewater injected matched an uplift of the ground surface at the ranch prior to the blowout. According to the paper, leading up to the blowout, up to 1.5 million gallons a day of produced water were injected at the wells, which are operated by Goodnight Midstream and Blackbeard Operating.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28012026/new-lawsuit-claims-catastrophic-impacts-from-permian-basin-injection-wells/