Oil Geyser Near El Paso, Texas Erupts For Days – Nobody Knows Why
An oil geyser erupted near El Paso, Texas, shooting oily water hundreds of feet in the air for days and nobody knows why.
It happened near Toyah, about 80 miles north of Marfa, 200 miles east of El Paso. Marfa is known primarily for the mystery lights that appear at night and a tiny Prada store just outside of town.
We can now add unexplained, seemingly unstoppable oil geyser to that list ...
The geyser erupted last Wednesday, spurting smelly, oily water hundreds of feet into the air. As of Monday, (10/7), it was still showing no signs of letting up.
At the time of this writing, experts still hadn't figured out how or why the geyser got going in the first place. At the moment, they're not even sure who owns it. What they are sure of is that massive levels of hydrogen sulfide are poisoning the air near the well.
It's trademark, sulfur smell ... think rotten eggs ... is detectable up to 2 miles away and the FAA declared the area over the geyser a no-fly zone. That restriction will remain in place through, (for now), at least October 11th.
"Retired" oil wells, aka Zombie Wells, can come back to life and the Texas Railroad Commission, the agency charged with finding and preventing oil well "resurrections", isn't doing too good.
"Words can't describe how far behind they are and how bad they are doing at this," Wright said. "There's going to be more of this, not just in Pecos County. You're going to see it all over the place." - chron
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