A dozen freshwater wells around Joaquin, Texas, sprung leaks last year, testing positive for benzene, chlorides and natural gas, and the town's public works director shut down the municipal water supply and activated emergency water from Logansport, Louisiana. Stacy Cranford, who directs public works for Joaquin, said he had long suspected the small East Texas town was sitting on a disaster waiting to happen, worried that underground pressure from nearby oil and gas wastewater disposal could eventually pollute the wells his community depends on.
Benzene Levels Far Exceed Federal Safety Threshold
State regulators later found benzene concentrations in some water wells reaching 0.116 milligrams per liter, according to reporting by the Houston Chronicle, exceeding the drinking water standard by about 23 times. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets the enforceable limit for benzene in public drinking water at 0.005 milligrams per liter, or 5 parts per billion, while maintaining an ideal goal of zero given the chemical's known carcinogenic risks. Benzene is a clear, flammable hydrocarbon found in crude oil and oilfield wastewater that has been linked to leukemia and other severe health effects.
Chloride concentrations in the area reached up to 21,400 milligrams per liter in May 2026, per the same investigation, and total dissolved solids had been trending upward in the wells since November 2025. The leaking wells sit near disposal wells, and the Texas Railroad Commission determined that underground pressure had contaminated shallow groundwater in the Joaquin area. Joaquin's municipal wells are located roughly two miles from the leaking site, and a first saltwater blowout in the town had already knocked out its water supply for about two weeks in 2025.
Regulators Trade Blame Over Who Was Told
Texas law requires the Railroad Commission to notify the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality once it documents groundwater contamination tied to regulated oil and gas activity, and requires TCEQ in turn to notify the local community. The Railroad Commission said TCEQ had been notified of the contamination in Joaquin, but TCEQ said it had not received that notification and would need additional information before it could assess who needs to be told. Under Section 26.408 of the Texas Water Code, expanded by Senate Bill 1663 in 2025, TCEQ is now required to notify all residents within a one-mile radius of a documented contamination site within 30 days, according to Texas Policy Research.
TCEQ monitors Joaquin's drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act and has not identified contaminants exceeding legal thresholds in its own testing, but the agency's contractors last tested for benzene and other carcinogens in January 2025, and last checked for chloride contamination in 2024. The Chronicle's reporting notes Joaquin water has not been tested for contamination in over a year. The town did conduct a full panel of water testing after the August 2025 leaks and found no contamination at that time, though it spent about $5,000 to do so.
An Aquifer That Supplies the Texas-Louisiana Line
The leaking wells draw from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, which supplies water to homes and businesses along the Texas-Louisiana state line. The aquifer spans 66 Texas counties from the Louisiana border to Mexico and provides roughly 40 percent of total groundwater pumping for municipal drinking supply across East Texas, according to the Texas Water Development Board. Oil and gas waste disposal in the region is concentrated in Shelby, Harrison, and Panola counties, where wells in the Haynesville Shale require huge amounts of water for fracking.
Wastewater crosses the Louisiana-Texas state line at roughly 187,000 barrels per day, according to B3 Insight as cited in the Chronicle's reporting. Nearby, the Deberry Water Supply serves about 1,000 people roughly 25 miles north of Joaquin. Sara Edwards, the volunteer president of Deberry Water Supply, said testing for oil and gas contaminants is expensive, and rural water board members often spend money out of their own pockets just to preserve access to clean water.
Ground Swelling and Earthquakes Preceded the Leaks
InSAR satellite data measured surface swelling beneath Joaquin of as much as six centimeters per year since 2020, according to state records referenced in the Chronicle's investigation, with the ground rising since at least that year. Two earthquakes struck near Huxley in August 2025 before the first reported leaking well was discovered, a pattern regulators describe as a symptom of underground wastewater disposal building pressure below the surface.
This is not the first time regulators have confronted pressure hazards from oilfield wastewater injection in Texas. In January 2024, the Railroad Commission suspended 23 saltwater disposal well permits across Reeves and Culberson counties after deep injection triggered a 5.2-magnitude earthquake, according to The Texas Tribune. Nationwide, oil and gas wells generate an average of 10 barrels of salty wastewater for every barrel of crude extracted, and Texas operations produced roughly 3.9 billion barrels of that wastewater in 2022 alone.
A Permit History Stretching Back to 2011
Records show the Railroad Commission nearly denied a disposal permit request from Common Disposal near Joaquin in 2011, after technical staff found 17 disposal wells already within a 10-mile radius of the town. Commission examiners approved it anyway. The agency requested pressure data from disposal operators across Shelby, Harrison, and Panola counties in 2012, then decreased permitted injection pressure limits in the Joaquin area in 2015, and has not approved a new disposal permit near Joaquin since 2014.
In May 2026, the Railroad Commission suspended disposal operations for five saltwater disposal wells operated by Select Water Solutions in Joaquin. The agency also suspended operations at a disposal well run by EQV Operating in March 2026. Seven disposal wells nearest the leaking freshwater wells have since been plugged or had their permits suspended, and the commission has directed Select Water Solutions, EQV Operating and Brookston Energy — which operates wells near the blowouts — to drill groundwater monitoring wells, assess the contamination, and submit drilling and sampling plans.
Commercial Ties Deepen as Contamination Spreads
The scrutiny comes even as Select Water Solutions has expanded its footprint in Joaquin. Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian joined the company in October 2025 to break ground on the state's first produced water lithium extraction facility, a project designed to process oilfield wastewater from the Haynesville Shale and pitched as an economic development milestone for Shelby County, per the Railroad Commission of Texas. Bryce Dubee, speaking for the commission, said the agency is committed to strong oversight while protecting underground sources of drinking water, and the commission operates under Statewide Rule 9, which allows it to modify, suspend or terminate disposal permits that threaten usable groundwater or public safety.
Eric Garrett, a local resident quoted in the Chronicle's reporting, put it more bluntly: any amount of poison is too much. According to Hoodline, The Joaquin case echoes other recent breakdowns tied to Texas oilfield wastewater, including a $7M Ward County blowout and a Chevron settlement over a reawakened “zombie” well on West Texas' Antina Ranch, both examples of how subsurface pressure from wastewater injection can force toxic brine toward the surface far from where it was originally injected. Statewide, Railroad Commission monitoring data from December 2025 recorded roughly 155,000 inactive wells, nearly 100,000 active low-producing wells and more than 11,000 delinquent orphan wells still awaiting state plugging — aging infrastructure that regulators and residents alike say can become a conduit for contamination when underground pressure rises.
