{"id":35256,"date":"2014-03-21T11:14:27","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T16:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=35256"},"modified":"2014-03-21T12:17:41","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T17:17:41","slug":"mapped-groundwater-contamination-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/03\/21\/mapped-groundwater-contamination-in-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapped: Groundwater Contamination in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/fusiontables\/embedviz?q=select+col6+from+1mCaY34-FflqncdUbWqpRnK3GBTpLpGZsLQNE0o2q&amp;viz=MAP&amp;h=false&amp;lat=30.569283215747326&amp;lng=-99.7670971580078&amp;t=1&amp;z=5&amp;l=col6&amp;y=2&amp;tmplt=2&amp;hml=ONE_COL_LAT_LNG\" height=\"400\" width=\"600\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nThough the rise of fracking (and the chemicals used in the fracking process) has <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/02\/12\/fracking-with-acid\/\">raised concerns about groundwater contamination<\/a>, the source of a majority of Texas\u2019 cases is far more mundane.<\/p>\n<p>Gasoline is the most prevalent source of groundwater contaminant in Texas, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tceq.texas.gov\/assets\/public\/comm_exec\/pubs\/sfr\/056-12.pdf\">Joint Groundwater Monitoring and Contamination Report<\/a> put out last year by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Of 2,083 total cases in the last five years, almost half (922) were because of a gasoline leak.\u00a0The map above plots every reported contamination case from 2008 to 2012, the most recent year of data.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have all these gas stations \u2026 some of these are old and have been there a while, and eventually they leak,\u201d Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/texas.sierraclub.org\/\">Lonestar chapter of the Sierra Club<\/a>, says. \u201cOften times they\u2019re not huge hazards because that water isn\u2019t necessarily the water that you drink, but they still are required to report it, and required to clean it up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because the leaks generally come from gas stations, cases of contamination are largely concentrated in the state\u2019s big cities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPetroleum storage tanks are nothing new. It\u2019s probably because there used to be one on every street corner,\u201d Cary Betz, chairman of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tgpc.state.tx.us\/\">Texas Groundwater Protection Committee<\/a>, says. \u201cThose activities actually peaked in about 1998 and 1999, so if you go further back in the reports, you\u2019ll see about twice as many groundwater contamination cases related to petroleum storage tanks then as you see today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut they\u2019re still a major problem just because there\u2019s so many of them,\u201d Betz adds.<\/p>\n<p>While there were relatively few reports from the Railroad Commission of Texas, responsible for reporting contamination involved with the oil and gas industry, Reed believes that there probably are more unreported contamination cases in rural drilling areas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of the private water wells out in rural Texas may be monitored by the individual people that own them, or may not be, whereas in a city, particularly if you\u2019re using drinking water, you\u2019ve got monthly reporting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>The state has had a number of problems managing its groundwater, especially during this latest drought, and contamination presents a problem for Texans on many levels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDepending on the type of contamination, and what the contaminant is, it can affect people\u2019s health or even in some cases be deadly.\u201d Reed says. \u201cThe other thing is the cost. Water that you are going to use, you\u2019re going to need to treat it. So if it\u2019s contaminated, you\u2019re going to need to treat it that much more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe more contaminated it is, the higher the cost, and that affects ratepayers, regardless of the health and environmental impacts.\u201d Reed says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though the rise of fracking (and the chemicals used in the fracking process) has raised concerns about groundwater contamination, the source of a majority of Texas\u2019 cases is far more mundane. Gasoline is the most prevalent source of groundwater contaminant in Texas, according to a Joint Groundwater Monitoring and Contamination Report put out last year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[295,50,33],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35256"}],"version-history":[{"count":56,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36319,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35256\/revisions\/36319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}