Oil Wastewater Is Injected Near Enid's Water Wells. Oklahoma Approved It Without a Hearing.

Oil and gas companies are injecting millions of gallons of toxic wastewater deep underground less than a quarter-mile from the drinking water wells of Enid, Oklahoma, a ProPublica investigation found. The wells sit inside the half-mile buffer Oklahoma’s own rules require, and the state agency approved them without holding a hearing. To stop them, the city has to plead its case to that same agency.

What Is Being Injected

Oil field wastewater is what comes up out of the ground with the oil and gas. It is saltier than the sea and laden with toxic metals, and companies dispose of it by pumping it back down into deep wells.

Two of those wells sit next to Enid’s water supply. The Flying Monkey well injects more than 800,000 gallons a day, and it has failed five structural integrity tests since 2021, including a tubing leak in March. The Estill #8 well injected more than 12 million gallons last year.

When an injection well leaks, the damage lasts. Midland, Texas, is still cleaning up groundwater more than 20 years after one failed.

A State Rule the State Waives

Oklahoma bans new injection within half a mile of a public water well. The Flying Monkey and Estill wells were approved anyway, at roughly a quarter-mile, with the permits marked “decision without hearing.”

This is not a local exception. ProPublica found at least 114 injection wells across Oklahoma sit closer to public water than the state’s own rule allows, putting the drinking water of more than 300,000 people at risk. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the wells, has granted nearly 400 exceptions to its injection rules since 2022.

Forced to Appeal to the Agency That Allowed It

Enid cannot simply write its own water-protection ordinance. A 2015 state law strips Oklahoma cities of the power to regulate oil and gas. So the city’s only path is to petition the Corporation Commission, the same body that approved the wells.

The conflict runs deeper than the permits. One of the three elected commissioners now hearing these issues, Brian Bingman, wrote that 2015 preemption law as a state senator. Another, Kim David, voted for it. The agency that took away local power and waved the wells through is the agency Enid must now persuade.

A National Problem With a Weak Federal Floor

Underground injection is regulated under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, which singles out oil and gas wastewater as a particularly urgent threat. But the EPA hands day-to-day authority to the states, and the states vary widely.

Colorado and Ohio require injection wells to sit at least 1,000 feet from water sources and enforce it. Oklahoma has a stronger rule on paper, a half-mile, and a commission that keeps granting exceptions to it. The federal floor is low enough that a captured state agency can dig beneath it.

Why It Matters

Groundwater does not stay in its lane. As former Enid city commissioner Ben Ezzell put it, the contamination from one bad well does not stop at a property line.

“It’s ultimately all one big aquifer. You can’t just pee in part of the pool. If any of the aquifer is tainted, all of the aquifer will be tainted.”

Ben Ezzell, former Enid city commissioner

Current commissioner Frank Baker framed the stakes more simply: “In the 21st century, water is going to be the new gold.” The communities that carry the heaviest pollution burden are usually the ones with the least power to stop it, a pattern documented across decades of environmental policy. Once an aquifer is poisoned, no amount of money brings it back.

What You Can Do Now

If you live in Oklahoma, use the letter below to ask your state lawmakers to repeal the 2015 law that bars cities from protecting their own water, and to close the loophole that lets the Corporation Commission grant exceptions to the half-mile buffer near drinking water.
Track the Enid case. The city’s petition to stop the wells and tighten testing within a mile of its water is pending in the Corporation Commission’s administrative court. Public attention is the main check on an agency that approved these wells without a hearing.
Wherever you live, ask your members of Congress to strengthen the Safe Drinking Water Act so the EPA sets a real minimum distance between injection wells and drinking water, and reviews state programs that approve wells too close. Call the Capitol at (202) 224-3121.
Check your own state’s rules. Look up whether injection wells operate near your water source through the EPA’s Underground Injection Control program, and ask your state regulator how close is too close.