'Biggest Oil Find' of 2016 Puts Crown Jewel Texas Oasis in Crosshairs for Fracking

[Jimbo101]

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REEVES COUNTY, TEXAS — Travelers crossing the long stretch of arid desert spanning West Texas might stumble across an extraordinarily improbable sight — a tiny teeming wetlands, a sliver of marsh that seems like it should sit by the ocean but actually lays over 450 miles from the nearest coast.

This cienega, or desert-wetlands (an ecosystem so unusual that its name sounds like a contradiction), lies instead near a massive swimming pool and lake, all fed by clusters of freshwater springs that include the deepest underwater cave ever discovered in the U.S., stretching far under the desert's dry sands.

Famous as “the oasis of West Texas,” Balmorhea State Park now hosts over 150,000 visitors a year, drawn by the chance to swim in the cool waters of the park's crystal-blue pool, which is fed by up to 28 million gallons of water a day flowing from the San Solomon springs. The pool's steady 72 to 76 degree Fahrenheit temperatures make the waters temptingly cool in the hot Texas summer and surprisingly warm in the winter, locals say — part of the reason it's been called “the crown jewel of the desert.”

In September, Apache Corp. announced a major new oil and gas find in Reeves County, a claimed $80 billion discovery that could turn the region's fate on its head.

This has locals, who have seen what happens to people's air, water, and communities when deserts are transformed into oil fields, worried.

The prospect of allowing thousands of wells to be fracked where water is so scarce raises fundamental questions about what natural resources Americans are willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of fracked oil and gas, Matta and other Balmorhea locals say. Though the drilling industry long denied that fracking puts water wells at risk of contamination, a major EPA study released in December concluded that drilling and fracking can pose serious risks to people's drinking water, and has already left some of the country's water supplies “unusable.”

In many ways, the risks Balmorhea's wild areas now face have been previewed in wildernesses around the world.

[Gman]

1. They're starting to try to get protests

Organized out there.