{"id":38045,"date":"2014-07-28T06:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=38045"},"modified":"2014-07-25T14:56:35","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T19:56:35","slug":"in-big-bend-battle-looms-on-fracking-along-the-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/07\/28\/in-big-bend-battle-looms-on-fracking-along-the-border\/","title":{"rendered":"In Big Bend, Battle Looms on Fracking Along the Border"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Marfa Public Radio:<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n
\"Dawn<\/a>

(Jim White III)<\/p>

Dawn in the Big Bend of Texas; it shares some tectonic and geographic characteristics with the Permian Basin, home of the country's highest-producing oil field.<\/p><\/div>\n

The\u00a0Big Bend\u00a0<\/a>of Texas, so named for the way the region hugs a massive bend in the Rio Grande, is renown for its desert landscapes, open spaces and tranquility.<\/p>\n

But parts of it lie within the oil-rich Permian Basin, the nation\u2019s\u00a0highest producing oil field<\/a>\u00a0thanks in large measure to fracking technology.<\/p>\n

And now,\u00a0Mexico is drilling\u00a0<\/a>at least 29 exploratory wells across the border from the Big Bend, a saying it wants to jumpstart fracking operations there.<\/p>\n

Of course, fracking requires water. And in the Big Bend, some landowners are selling water for fracking, pitting some conservationists against private property holders, who also consider themselves to be good stewards of the land.<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

Though they lie on the edge of an\u00a0ancient sea bed<\/a>\u00a0embedded with hydrocarbons, the west Texas borderlands were once thought to be too remote to sustain oil and gas extraction.<\/p>\n

But today fracking technology\u2014fracturing underground formations by blasting water, sand and chemicals into rock to unlock trapped oil and gas\u2014means once inaccessible oil is there for the taking.<\/p>\n

All signs point to fracking coming to both sides of the border here.<\/p>\n

Juan Jos\u00e9 Su\u00e1rez Coppel<\/a>, an economist and CEO of Mexico\u2019s state-owned oil monopoly, PEMEX,\u00a0said on Bloomberg\u00a0<\/a>Televison that \u201cMexico has huge potential in hydrocarbons.\u201d<\/p>\n

PEMEX says its wells on its side of the Texas border are a prelude to what it hopes will be the start to industrial-scale fracking there.<\/p>\n

But without water,\u00a0fracking<\/a>\u00a0can\u2019t take place.<\/p>\n

And for Texas water rights holders, despite ongoing drought, it\u2019s a sellers market. Customers in both countries want\u00a0Texas water<\/a>. And it\u2019s all unfolding in a state that historically cherishes both water and property rights.<\/p>\n

At a recent city\u00a0council meeting in Alpine, Texas,<\/a>\u00a0a local resident named Oscar Cobos told the crowd that councillors should ban fracking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re ready to sell us out on a silver platter we don\u2019t need them if office. Thank-you,\u201d a statement that was met with applause.<\/p>\n

No formal action was taken. But even if councillors approved a ban, it would be a non-binding though symbolic gesture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to change our lifestyle in Alpine, Texas,\u201d said another resident Jan Woodward.<\/p>\n

But in the north Texas town of Denton, a\u00a0fracking ban will be on the November ballot<\/a>\u00a0to let citizens decide. This is all new legal ground. In Texas, the state and not local or county government regulates the oil and gas industry. But if Denton bans fracking, it will be a precedent that fracking opponents hope will allow them to get around existing state law.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to a rancher named Howdy Fowler.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I know about fracking you could put in a thimble,\u201d he said outside the Alpine Civic Center where the council met.<\/p>\n

The voice against fracking may be loud in the the Big Bend, but not everybody\u2019s on the same page. Fowler was the one person at the council meeting who spoke out against a fracking ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not an expert on fracking. But when people start telling you what you can and can\u2019t do with your own property, you\u2019re treading on thin ice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fracking has\u00a0propelled<\/a>\u00a0the economies of cities like Midland and Odessa, two cities in the heart of the\u00a0Permian Basin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a more nuanced argument in border counties. They\u2019re watching the oil and gas play creep closer to an area known for itspristine isolation<\/a>\u00a0from industry.<\/p>\n

In the last two years, more than fracking wells have been permitted in one Texas border county alone.<\/p>\n

Janet Adams has empathy for both sides. She manages the\u00a0Underground Water Conservation District i<\/a>n Jeff Davis County, Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe monitor wells and they are not dropping,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s from a ranching family. She described one rancher\u2019s decision to sell water.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he overpumps it, it hurts him more than anybody. And west Texas landowners are not going to hurt their own land and property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Water levels may fluctuate. But Midland, Texas-based energy trader and geologist\u00a0Bill Dingus<\/a>\u00a0says there\u2019s one critically underreported part of the fracking story.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t think that fracking especially fracking at great depths is the problem,\u201d he began.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there is a problem with properly plugging wells.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dingus says that one of the things that can come up through old wells is deep brine salt water. And salt water, he says, can create havoc.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood operators will plug them properly. I\u2019m not worried about good operators,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut companies that go under, wells that get forgotten, we need to make sure we\u2019re going back and plugging all those carefully to preserve our ground water.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been at least 80\u00a0local resolutions<\/a>\u00a0nationally to forbid fracking. It\u2019s too soon to suggest that there\u2019s mounting momentum for fracking bans in the border region. That could change, though. In a\u00a0precedent setting decision<\/a>, New York State\u2019s Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of two towns that cited water concerns when they banned fracking.<\/p>\n

That ruling is expected to be cited by fracking opponents in Texas who favor local rather than state control.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Marfa Public Radio: The\u00a0Big Bend\u00a0of Texas, so named for the way the region hugs a massive bend in the Rio Grande, is renown for its desert landscapes, open spaces and tranquility. But parts of it lie within the oil-rich Permian Basin, the nation\u2019s\u00a0highest producing oil field\u00a0thanks in large measure to fracking technology. And now,\u00a0Mexico […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[375,15],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38045"}],"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\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38048,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38045\/revisions\/38048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}