Ready to fight - Residents organize to oppose disposal sites

By News Staff on Thursday, February 27, 2025  lightandchampion.com

Residents organize to oppose disposal sites

Opposition to several oilfield solid waste disposal sites along the Texas-Louisiana border, including one in Shelby County continues to grow.

A meeting of citizens from Shelby, Panola, Harrison and Rusk counties concerned about the possible health risks from the sites will take place tonight at 6:00 p.m. at the fire station in Elysian Fields. The meeting will be to discuss the situation and to formulate possible actions to take to stop the sites from operating.

“We are just a group of residents coming together to fight for our homes and communities,” said a local organizer. “But we are getting noticed.”

The sites under scrutiny are owned and operated by McBride Operating, which is based in Longview.

Because of stricter regulations governing the disposal of oil and gasfield wastes in Louisiana, residents are questioning whether companies are deliberately purchasing land in Texas near the state border to dispose of out-of-state waste, leaving Texas taxpayers to bear the cost of any environmental contamination.

The group has invited local leaders, representatives from federal and state agencies, Texas and U.S. Senators and Representatives, Texas lawmakers, groundwater conservation districts and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the meeting.

Two of the sites to be addressed, one in Waskom and one in Elysian Fields, are already in operation, while one was recently approved for construction in Paxton.

As if in confirmation of the residents’ concerns about the environmental danger posed by the sites, the Waskom facility had its application for a renewal of its permit to operate denied by Railroad Commission staff earlier this month. The company has been cited for dozens of violations during its years of operation.

Some of the main concerns the group expressed in their opposition to the disposal sites include the alleged lack of oversight as they state that McBride is responsible for self-reporting any leaks or contamination.

The group is also apprehensive of the proposed location of the Paxton site as testing has revealed high levels of benzene contamination in the groundwater at McBride’s current disposal sites. The Paxton site is only 1,200 feet from two of the Paxton Water Supply Corporation’s water wells The Paxton site is also in a wetland area with groundwater close to the surface, making it even more susceptible to possible contamination.

Another area of concern is failure on the part of the state to enforce its regulations, as the Waskom facility continues to operate despite its original permit expiring on July 30, 2024 and the permit renewal, dated Feb. 14, stating that “the operator must cease operations and begin closure immediately.”

In the report by the Technical Permitting Section of the RRC denying the Waskom facility’s renewal application, “several persistent issues that have defied resolution, and staff finds are impediments to compliance to the protection of surface and subsurface water at this facility” were cited as reasons for the permit’s denial.

The first issue cited was that the facility was not constructed according to the design submitted for the permit. One example is that the company built two stormwater catchment pits which were not part of design diagrams submitted for permit approval. McBride claims they were and the pits were intended to collect non-contact stormwater. But, RRC staff reported measuring high salinity levels in the pits, along with observing a layer of oil on the fluids in the pits, oil stains on the walls, the pits holding fluid waste and other signs of contact with stormwater.

Another area of violation outlined in the report was the level of benzene, a known carcinogenic, and chlorides in three monitoring wells drilled before the facility began operating. Background benzene levels in two of the wells measured on Oct. 9, 2019 were above the 0.005 mg/l listed in the RRC Spill Cleanup guidance. Chloride levels were less than 50mg/l in all the wells.

After the facility began to operate on Feb. 20,2020 one well showed an increase of chlorides to 2,380 mg/l and went as high as 5,900 mg/l during the first four quarters. Less than a year later it went up 11,400 during one testing. Benzene levels were also highly elevated.

The report notes that the facility is in an area of legacy oil and gas activity which may have contributed to the groundwater contamination, but the facility could not be ruled out as a source of ongoing contamination. It also describes McBride’s response to the groundwater contamination issue as sluggish. It also claims that McBride’s groundwater contamination monitoring system has not been updated enough to sufficiently detect or monitor groundwater under the facility.

The resident’s group say they also fear exposure to Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORMs) and other hazardous materials. Compounding that fear is the fact that these facilities sit atop the Carizzo-Wilcox aquifer which extends from Northeast Texas to San Antonio.

All of these issues will be open for discussion at the meeting, which the group encourages any concerned residents to attend.