Nonprofit news organization Mother Jones is spanking Fort Worth and Texas in this story for allowing the oil and gas industry to use millions upon millions of gallons of water to drill for natural gas while the state is staggering through a horrific drought, water sources are going dry, and cities are limiting water use by residents.
The story by environmental writer Josh Harkinson says analysts predict the drought will continue through next summer, and yet “the state’s booming and increasingly thirsty natural gas industry faces no limits to how much water it can pump.”
It’s a problem that Fort Worth Weekly first wrote about in 2006 and has continued to point out ever since. The state legislature, which has been heavily influenced by the drilling industry for, oh, a century or more, have been slow to beef up regulation.
Anyone surprised?
