Days after a geyser in the West Texas oilfield erupted, it’s still unclear what caused the blast of water and who’s responsible.
Jets of oily, salty water shot nearly 100 feet in the air outside of Toyah, located in rural Reeves County. The Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates oil and gas in the state, is investigating the geyser.
Amanda Drane, an investigative reporter focusing on energy for the Houston Chronicle, was on the scene shortly after the geyser erupted. She spoke to the Texas Standard about what happened and what questions still remain.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: First things first: Do they have this geyser plugged yet? What exactly is going on?
Amanda Drane: As of Monday afternoon, I was told it was still flowing at relatively the same height and same pressure.
Wow. Now, this is happening in Reeves County, part of far West Texas, where there’s been a lot of oil and gas activity. How much is known about the specific cause of this geyser?
Not a lot is known about the cause at this point. The cause itself will be a point of contention, I’m sure, going forward as the Railroad Commission and the oil company is working in the area to figure out what’s going on.
Well, I’ll tell you what certainly comes to my mind, and probably a lot of listeners, too: a well blowout, because you’re talking about an area where there’s been a lot of seismic activity of late.
And then you’ve got this plume of oily water, a rotten egg smell. I’m told that you can smell it for miles around, at least two miles downwind of the geyser. Is this a job for the Texas Railroad Commission or what?
Assuming this is a well that belongs to the oil and gas industry, it’s under their jurisdiction. They have not said what type of well this is. If it is perhaps a water well, it would fall outside of their jurisdiction.
We know that Kinder Morgan has taken control over the site, a Houston-based pipeline giant, but they have said it’s unrelated to their pipeline operations.
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Very interesting. Now, I’ve been reading some stories in the environmental press suggesting that there was a 1961 oil and gas well in this area. And there’s been a lot of concern about a relationship between that old gas well and a lot of earthquakes out there. Have you heard anything similar?
Yeah, I think that there is an old dry hole, if that’s what you’re talking about. And we do know for sure that there have been a lot of earthquake issues in this area and the Railroad Commission has linked wastewater injection from the oil field to the earthquakes.
But we don’t know yet whether or not we’re talking about an expulsion, say, of wastewater from this plume of oily water.
Right. Until the water is tested and the results are made public, we can’t say for sure whether the water coming out of the geyser is oil field wastewater.
Well, you anticipated my next question, because I was curious: What’s known about the substance that shooting into the air? Apparently, you can see rainbows all around it. It’s known to include some kind of oily substance, right?
Well, I was there on site, and I can tell you, the first smell that I smelled walking up to it was the gasoline-like smell of crude oil. Then, of course, I was hit with the rotten egg stench that is often accompanied by oil and gas.
And the items that the water had touched, the gear that the first responders were using, when they came back from the geyser, it was covered in salt.
That rotten egg stench has been associated with a toxic gas that’s notorious in the Permian oil field, hydrogen sulfide. Are you hearing any talk about that from experts?
Yeah, absolutely. There’s definitely a big cloud of of toxic gas coming off that geyser. The first responders on site when I was there last week measured about 250 parts per million of the gas. And it was hard to breathe out there.
Well, from the sound of it the Texas Railroad Commission isn’t clear whether or not they actually have jurisdiction. You have the pipeline company saying it’s nothing that they’ve done.
Is the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality responsible for it? Who seems to be overseeing this? Who’s in charge of taking care of business here?
Well, we know that this is happening in an oil field, and the Texas Railroad Commission has jurisdiction over all oil and gas activities. You have an oil company, Kinder Morgan, that is controlling the site. So it would appear that the Railroad Commission has jurisdiction.
We’re just waiting for the details to come to light. And that’s something that I’m working on.
