Water is bursting from another abandoned West Texas oil well, continuing a troubling trend

From the article:

It’s strange, he said, because local ranchers need pumps to draw from their water wells. But every so often, it comes out of an oil well by itself.

Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of fracking wastewater. West Texas oil producers pump millions of gallons of so-called produced water, laced with chemical lubricants and numerous hazardous compounds such as arsenic, bromide, strontium, mercury, barium, and organic compounds, particularly benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, underground every day for disposal, often into old oil and gas wells.

In theory, the produced water will remain in those wells and rock formations in perpetuity. But the geological science is imprecise, and if the water broke out its confines, it could affect pressure in other pockets underground.

Many other factors could affect the situation, Dunlap said. Gas can create pressure underground, as can interactions between freshwater and heavier salt water. Produced water can be five to eight times saltier than ocean water.