Shortage of inspectors leaves thousands of oil, gas wells unmonitored

The majority of Texas' hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells have gone at least five years without an inspection, underscoring a monitoring regimen that even state regulators concede is inadequate and increases the risk of leaks, spills and other hazards.

The Railroad Commission, which regulates the state's oil and gas industry, says it not only has a severe shortage of inspectors - just 158 for 435,000 wells - but also antiquated computer systems that make it nearly impossible to track whether wells and their owners have histories of violating state rules and regulations. Data are stored on a 40-year-old system that is inaccessible to the commissioners, most employees, and members of the public - unless they know how to use a mainframe computer, according to interviews with Railroad Commission staff.

About 1,400 violations were issued based on inspections in 2016, with the majority - more than 700 - involving the failure to adequately plug inactive wells and protect water sources from toxic chemicals, according to the commission's annual violations report. Commissioners concede they don't know how widespread such problems are since 65 percent of wells - about two out of three - have gone five years or more without an inspection, according to agency's budget request.

It's also difficult, they said, to know if certain companies are repeat offenders or certain wells are consistent problems since they can't easily access inspection data that might show a history of violations.

"We are nowhere near where we'd like to be," said Kim Corley, who became the commission's executive director a year ago. "We can produce reports out of the mainframe, but it's not web-based, it's not instantaneous and it's kind of clunky. And until we get that money, we can't upgrade."

The Railroad Commission is seeking a special appropriation of about $45 million from the Legislature to hire more inspectors, upgrade its technology and reduce the inspections backlog, among other things. The goal is to inspect every well at least once every five years and make data more accessible to the commission and the public.

In past legislative sessions, including 2015, lawmakers have chosen not to provide the money the commission says it needs. This year, the House and Senate have proposed radically different budgets for the commission.

The House has proposed increasing the budget by $35 million, while the Senate proposed cutting it by $13.5 million. The commission will go before the Senate Finance Committee Feb. 9 to defend its requests.

Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, who is chair of the finance committee, described the Senate plan as a starting point in the debate over funding levels for the Railroad Commission.

"I live in the Barnett Shale, so I understand both the economic impact and the health and safety concerns involved with energy production," Nelson said in a statement. "We will work to ensure that the resources are there to ensure a safe, thriving energy sector in Texas."

Two industry trade groups, the Texas Oil and Gas Association and Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, said they support additional funding for the Railroad Commission to beef up inspections staff, upgrade computer systems and modernize data collection.

The Railroad Commission's roughly $87 million annual budget is largely funded by fees paid by the state's oil and gas companies, meaning the agency's revenues are subject to the vagaries of the oil market. The boom-and-bust cycles tend to work against the commission, creating many more wells to inspect during the booms and significantly reducing fee collections during the busts. Ultimately, both cycles result in too many wells and too few inspectors, regulators said.

Even with added inspectors, it would still take years to clear the inspection backlog. By 2019, the Railroad Commission said in its budget request, 20 percent of wells - one in five - would still be waiting more than five years for inspection.

Environmental advocates say the state needs to devote far more money to ensure wells operate safely. Inspecting wells each year would require the commission to quadruple the number of inspectors.

"You cannot claim that you are doing the job of protecting the public interest if you are not inspecting wells each year," said Alan Septoff, a spokesman for Earthworks, a national environmental advocacy group that has analyzed inspection data in Texas and other energy producing states. Most have multi-year inspection backlogs, he said.

Scott Anderson, a Texas-based senior policy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, another national advocacy group, said the numbers just don't add up for inspectors. Each has a goal to visit 700 wells a year. That barely makes a dent in the backlog, but checking any more than that could result in rushed, cursory inspections and missed problems, he said.

Prioritizing inspections according to past histories of violations would be more effective, Anderson added, but, of course, that information is buried in an outdated computer system.