Texas Government Lobby News: Texas Supreme Court to Consider Underground Trespassing
A company that runs “injection wells” near a rice farm is in the midst of complex legal action. A nearby rice farm claims that wastewater from the mining operation has ended up in the aquifer below the farm. They are claiming a trespassing violation against the mining company.
Clearly this case has larger implications in light of similar mining and drilling operations that have expanded in Texas in recent years.
Representatives of the farm say they worry that the waste, which includes the flammable liquid acetone, will contaminate its groundwater and erode the value of its property. Though the water is too salty to drink, those on the farm’s side contend that it is valuable because desalination technology could make it drinkable.
The well operator and its supporters say the waste will make the groundwater no more polluted than it naturally is. And in its brief, the Texas Oil and Gas Association calls it “impossible” for a well operator to “predict or control the precise path of migration within a formation that could span dozens of square miles.”
The larger question is, just how far down into the earth do property lines extend?
Read original article here.