Schuyler Wight Interviewed on Hill Country Institute Live

Schuyler Wight is a fourth-generation rancher who has raised cattle near Fort Stockton for decades. Now he's fighting a battle he did not create. Scattered across his sprawling 20,000-acre ranch are more than 100 abandoned oil and gas wells left behind by oil and gas companies. Water is now bubbling up from these abandoned oil wells and is polluting Wight's pasture and killing his cows. Abandoned “dry hole” oil wells are polluting Texas farms, ranches and groundwater. The state and the oil and gas industry won’t fix them. Wildcatters drilled in random locations for decades looking for oil. Many were unsuccessful, but the drilling opened up layers of porous rock, which led to water and pollutants such as benzene and xylene, both carcinogens, flowing to the surface. Rather than cap the holes, the wildcatters and their oil companies — now long gone — often abandoned the wells or transferred ownership of unproductive wells to the previous owners of Wight’s ranch to be used as water wells. The pollution from the wells is killing cattle and ruining pastures, as well as harming the groundwater of West Texas. Texas faces many water issues including groundwater pollution, aging infrastructure, drought, flooding, and population growth. Larry discusses these and many other topics related to Texas water with Schuyler Wight.