Congress wants to fix Texas’s abandoned oil wells. But the problem is much largerHouston ChronicleMedia Coverage | Sep 08, 2022

WASHINGTON – Spread out across his 14,000 acre ranch in West Texas, Schuyler Wight figures, there are more than a hundred abandoned oil wells.

Many lie dormant, but some regularly belch up brackish water from thousands of feet underground, contaminating freshwater wells and requiring him to pipe water 10 miles across his property so his cattle have clean water to drink.

“The water’s so bad around there the neighbors can’t even take a bath in it,” Wight said. “When that water comes up it kills everything around it. For generations that land is going to be dead.”