As Pecos River Farmers' Water Deliveries Failed, Oil Companies Used 31,000 Acre-Feet Of River Water For Fracking

[hatrack]

Extreme drought has diminished the flows of the Rio Grande and Pecos River, two of the most iconic waterways in Texas. The advocacy group American Rivers recently named the Lower Rio Grande one of its most endangered rivers, describing a “near-permanent human-induced megadrought threatening all life that depends on it.” On the Pecos River, there hasn’t been enough water to distribute to irrigation districts below the Red Bluff Reservoir in recent years. While farmers and cities face increasing water scarcity, oil and gas companies use billions of gallons of water from these rivers annually. An exclusive Inside Climate News analysis found that drillers used over 31,000 acre feet, or more than 10 billion gallons, of Rio Grande water for drilling and fracking operations in the Eagle Ford Shale between 2021 and 2024.

That’s enough water to meet the needs of 113,500 Texas households for an entire year, based on average daily use of 246 gallons per household. At the Red Bluff Reservoir on the Pecos River, Daniel Arrant of Kingsley Water Company reports to have sold more than 75 million barrels of water, or more than 4 billion gallons, for oil and gas operations since 2016. Numerous Texas oil and gas companies have made voluntary commitments to reduce their freshwater use and shift to brackish or recycled water for use in fracking for oil and gas. But the water sales, like those reported by Arrant of the Kingsley Water Company, show that oil and gas drilling is still reliant on surface water from Texas rivers.

Surface water sold for drilling and fracking is categorized as “mining” consumption under Texas law. Pumping water underground to drill or frack a well often permanently removes it from the natural hydrologic cycle, given the presence of chemical fracking fluids and natural toxins like arsenic following its use in the extraction process for oil or gas. Inside Climate News obtained Rio Grande water data from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) through a public information request. Kingsley Water Company, an oil field water services firm based in The Woodlands, a Houston suburb, was the top user of Rio Grande water for oil and gas drilling, followed by SM Energy Company, Segundo Navarro Drilling and Select Water Solutions.

Between the Rio Grande and the Pecos River, Kingsley has sold enough water for drilling to meet the needs of more than 100,000 Texas households for a year. Kinglsey and Arrant did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13052025/texas-rio-grande-pecos-river-fracking/

[gab13by13]

1. Then once that water is pumped into the ground it gets contaminated

with all sorts of nasty shit and then they pump that nasty shit back into the ground claiming that it won't contaminate anything.