Wastewater Disposal Wells, Fracking, and Environmental Injustice in Southern Texas

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate race and poverty in areas where oil and gas wastewater disposal wells, which are used to permanently inject wastewater from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations, are permitted.

Methods: With location data of oil and gas disposal wells permitted between 2007 and 2014 in the Eagle Ford area, a region of intensive fracking in southern Texas, we analyzed the racial composition of residents living less than 5 kilometers from a disposal well and those farther away, adjusting for rurality and poverty, using a Poisson regression.

Results: The proportion of people of color living less than 5 kilometers from a disposal well was 1.3 times higher than was the proportion of non-Hispanic Whites. Adjusting for rurality, disposal wells were 2.04 times (95% confidence interval = 2.02, 2.06) as common in areas with 80% people of color or more than in majority White areas. Disposal wells are also disproportionately sited in high-poverty areas.

Conclusions: Wastewater disposal wells in southern Texas are disproportionately permitted in areas with higher proportions of people of color and residents living in poverty, a pattern known as "environmental injustice."

FIGURE 1—

Area and Location of Permits for Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction Wells: Eagle Ford Shale Region, TX, 2007–2014

FIGURE 2—

Prevalence Ratios Comparing the Percentage of People Living Near an Oil and Gas Disposal Well in Census Block Groups With ≥ 20% People of Color vs Those With < 20% People of Color, Unadjusted and Adjusted for Rurality: Eagle Ford Shale Region, TX, 2007–2014 Note. The adjustment uses a cubic polynomial of the natural logarithm of population density. Error bars depict 95% confidence intervals.

FIGURE 3—

Prevalence Ratios Comparing the Percentage of People Living Near a Disposal Well in Census Block Groups With ≥ 20% People of Color vs Those With < 20% People of Color, Adjusted for Rurality and Rurality With Poverty: Eagle Ford Shale Region, TX, 2007–2014 Note. Dichotomized into high and low poverty on the basis of the mean census block group level. Error bars depict 95% confidence intervals.