Texas court rules oil companies own fracking wastewater, not landowners
A recent Texas Supreme Court ruling gives oil companies full ownership of produced water from drilling operations, a move that may shape future control over wastewater re-use and mineral extraction.
Martha Pskowski reports for Inside Climate News.
In short:
- The Texas Supreme Court ruled that oil companies holding mineral leases, not landowners, own the chemically contaminated wastewater known as produced water, which comes from oil and gas drilling.
- The case arose after a landowning family leased rights to one company for oil drilling and to another for the wastewater; the court decided produced water is part of the mineral estate and considered waste, not water.
- With new interest in extracting lithium and other minerals from produced water, the ruling clarifies ownership but leaves unresolved who controls valuable non-hydrocarbon elements.
Key quote:
“[P]roduced water is not water. While produced water contains molecules of water, both from injected fluid and subsurface formations, the solution itself is waste — a horse of an entirely different color.”
— Texas Supreme Court
Why this matters:
Fracking generates billions of gallons of toxic wastewater laced with salts, metals and radioactive material. Disposing of it has long been a problem, linked in Texas and elsewhere to groundwater contamination and earthquakes from deep-well injection. But now that companies are eyeing produced water as a resource — for irrigating crops or extracting critical minerals like lithium — questions of ownership carry financial and environmental weight. Who profits from this toxic byproduct may shape how it's managed and whether it's handled safely. The court’s ruling makes clear that mineral rights holders control this waste, but it also opens a Pandora’s box over the environmental oversight and long-term public health implications of reusing or repurposing it.
Related EHN coverage: "No evidence" that fracking can be done without threatening human health: Report
