To Protect Its Drinking Water, This City Has to Appeal to the Oil Regulators That Put It at Risk

In northwest Oklahoma along a dirt road just hundreds of yards from where the city of Enid draws its drinking water, an oil company injects toxic byproducts of production deep underground.

This close proximity violates state rules meant to protect public groundwater supplies from oily wastewater that can be saltier than seawater and contain harmful metals. Injection operations are banned within half-a-mile (805 meters) of any public well unless regulators hold hearings to ensure such activity won't pollute local waters.

However in 2018 without holding a hearing, state officials approved this injection site — known as 'Flying Monkey'— which is designed for disposing waste through high-pressure steel tubes. Since then it has repeatedly failed structural integrity tests indicating potential leaks could occur if something goes wrong with these wells.

Frontier and ProPublica mapped every disposal facility across Oklahoma revealing over one hundred fourteen sites located near municipal supply systems including two others besides Flying Monkey based out-of-state locations like Seminole or even zip codes around town showing more than three-hundred thousand residents rely on similar infrastructure daily throughout central regions today.

A search tool now allows users inputting their address ZIP code etc., find how many nearby facilities exist but also highlights areas deemed safe according recent findings.