Ranchers Frustrated By Water Spills from Oil Fields

Ranchers in drought-prone South Texas usually celebrate every drop of water that falls their way, but when an oil field services company pumped the contents of a frac pond onto his property April 30, Tommy Shockome called the sheriff's department. Shockome and neighbor Gilbert Torres watched the water pour from the lined pond on another ranch onto their properties southwest of Kenedy, one of the busiest areas of the Eagle Ford Shale, a 400-mile oil field that arcs across South Texas. The water was brown and rust-colored and foamy. And it was everywhere - flooding Torres' terraced land before running across Shockome's property and into his pond. Some of the waste eventually disappeared down the county road. The call to the sheriff was an attempt to make sure someone else saw what happened, but it was the start of what would come to be a weekslong circle of state, federal and corporate bureaucracy for the neighbors to navigate...more