1 Abandoned TX Water Well Has Cost $1 Million, Sunk Surrounding Land 3/4" Per Month
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Around the late 1980s, some of the corroded wells around Imperial (population 278) started spewing smelly, brackish San Andres aquifer water that had mixed with salts and other minerals on its way to the surface. Over several years, the Holladay hole swamped the surrounding land, including a piece of FM 1053, a two-lane road that stretches nearly 60 miles across parts of Pecos, Crane and Ector counties. Beginning around 2004, the area began sinking as the water percolated back underground and ate away at underground salt formations.
Had its waters not flooded the road, the Holladay hole might be just another forgotten West Texas well that no one is willing to pay to plug. The Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s petroleum regulator, is responsible for plugging thousands of abandoned oil wells — a growing list that’s spurring groundwater pollution fears — but no state agency is charged with sealing water wells.
Because this well threatened a state-maintained road, the Texas Department of Transportation stepped forward to plug it. In late 2008, the agency found a contractor who agreed to do it for about $125,000, said Mark Cross, an agency spokesman. The cost soared to $315,000 by the time the work was finished three months later (a local water district and development council chipped in a small amount for the bill).
But by all accounts, the contractor botched the job. It plugged the well only at the top rather than cementing all the way down. This stopped the flow above ground but allowed the brackish water to continue mixing and mingling below. Things got worse quickly. The well and the surrounding ground has sunk nearly 40 feet since the plugging. The land along FM 1053 is dropping three-fourths of an inch every month, and the road is shifting west toward the well, Cross said. The depression caused by the well now measures 1,400 feet across.
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https://www.texastribune.org/2017/01/22/west-texas-abandoned-well-sinks-land-sucks-tax-dol/
