City of Midland reached a settlement with Houston-based Pilot Water Solutions before hearings scheduled this week at Railroad Commission of Texas on Pilot’s plans to build disposal wells near T-Bar Ranch, the source of a third of Midland’s drinking water. Texas Tribune said the settlement calls for Pilot to pay Midland $400,000 a year and an additional $4.5 million every 10 years based on the amount of produced water it injects into the wells. City officials said they will use the money to fund new water infrastructure.
Pilot also agreed to reduce the number of wells from 18 to 9, finance and install monitoring systems that would detect chemicals in the drinking water, and plug 2 abandoned disposal wells at T-Bar Ranch. Pilot also agreed to drill the 9 wells farther away from the drinking water. Midland City Council member Scott Dufford told the Tribune, “Maybe we shouldn’t say this is the safest saltwater disposal system in the country, but it’s safer now because of what we did.”