After talking with them and learning that we share a common excitement and long-term bullishness for the Cline, the decision to contribute to their site was an easy one. You can click over and see my first post for them here; or, since it is slightly abbreviated there, I'll post the unabbreviated version below.
Barnhart is a small unincorporated town with a population
less than 200 that sits about an hour’s drive south-west of San Angelo. However, this is not your typical, sleepy,
rural Texas town. Every day the town’s streets
swell with traffic as workers from other communities converge on Barnhart to
make use of the South Orient Railroad, which connects the Permian Basin to
Houston. Sand and other oilfield
materials go in to Barnhart; oil goes out to Houston. With the development of the nearby Cline and
Wolfcamp formations, this tiny town has become a very valuable outpost.
However, Barnhart has also become the source of much controversy
since it was reported back in June that the town’s lone water well had run
dry. Since then, several publications (The
Guardian, The
Houston Chronicle, and The
Daily Kos) have opined that fracking has consumed all of the town’s water
leaving the residents and livestock there thirsty.
Currently, Texas is in its 3rd year of a drought
that began in 2011, a year which has been labeled one of (if not) the worst
year(s) for rainfall in recorded history for the state. The last two years have been a poor reprieve
from that time. Today, Texas lake water
levels average 66% of capacity, and groundwater depletion is a growing concern.
Is fracking to blame for the Barnhart well running dry? To answer this in the affirmative, like the
above mentioned publications, is to give in to pure speculation and ignore the
myriad of factors that weigh on this issue.
It’s easy to blame and demagogue the highly visible semi-trucks hauling
tank-full after tank-full of water. It’s
more difficult to point the finger at the ranchers and farmers who often
account for 3 to 20 times the water used for fracking in the communities around
oil rich formations. The author of the
Guardian article points out that in nearby Crocket County fracking consumes 25%
of all water used, but she fails to note that there are less than 3700 people
living in that mostly infertile area.
All of the authors seem intent on fear mongering by pointing to Barnhart
as evidence that the oil industry is going to run our entire country out of
water, but in Texas - the number one state for oil and gas production by far –
fracking has never accounted for more than 1% of annual statewide water use.
The real issue to be highlighted in Barnhart is the
necessity for smart leadership and coordinated efforts among parties with an
interest in maintaining the value of a common resource – that resource being
the town, its people, infrastructure, and also its groundwater. It would behoove the people of Barnhart to
incorporate their town, elect leaders, extract tax revenue, and begin the
coordinated dance with the oil companies that other Texas municipalities have
learned to embrace.
Today Barnhart is not without water. Five days after the well went dry local crews
were able to bring an old railway water well back into production to meet the
community’s needs, but it’s just a temporary fix to their water issue. In the long-term nothing short of breaking
out of this awful Texas drought will sustain the efforts in the Permian. My suggestion to those concerned is to do as
the salty old Texans who have survived through thick and thin do – pray for
rain.
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