Across Texas, drillers pump toxic oilfield waste down disposal wells, building pressure that has to go somewhere. Often, that somewhere is up the nearest old plugged well. When its cement seal or steel walls give way, it becomes a direct path to the surface.
That's a zombie well.
The brine that comes out can contain radium, deadly hydrogen sulfide, and the secret chemicals and PFAS known to be used in fracking fluid. Worst case, it quietly and permanently poisons an aquifer, contaminating the water well at a nearby home or school with cancer-causing benzene.
But for every well in Texas, failure is only a matter of time. Producers make 4x as much waste as they do oil — and the pressure statewide keeps building.
Texas has 170,000 plugged wells within a mile of a disposal well. As our map shows, the more disposal wells pumping nearby, the likelier a plugged well is to fail.
Each dot is a well: green is quiet, red is at risk — one of 158,000 threatening drinking water. Pink dots are injectors — the wells doing the pressurizing. Click any well for its score and its threats. ☰ filters. ★ ranks the highest-risk wells.