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Saul Elbein on Muck Rack

Saul Elbein

(He/Him)
  • None, Freelancer
Austin
As seen in: MSN, MSN Ireland, The New York Times Magazine, Yahoo Life, Reuters, Yahoo Canada, Yahoo News, Yahoo News Malaysia, Yahoo News New Zealand, Yahoo Singapore and
Covers:  Texas, science and climate
Journalist covering land, energy, and resources. Founder of Future Heist. All opinions my own.

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Articles

1.2 Million Oil Wells Are Buried Underneath Texas. Do You Live on Top of a Dangerous One?

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By Saul Elbein
| Texas State Public Affairs Network
Business Entertainment Health Politics Science Technology Texas Weather September 9, 2026 / Saul Elbein This spring, a Permian Basin pastor got an unpleasant surprise: a geyser of more than 1.5 million gallons of toxic brine gushing up through the parking lot of the First Baptist Church in Grandfalls. It was a “zombie well”—what happens when the plug on one of the state’s hundreds of thousands of old wells fails, releasing poisonous gas and water onto the property above.
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1.2 Million Oil Wells Are Buried Underneath Texas. Do You Live on Top of a Dangerous One?

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By Saul Elbein
| The Texas Observer Verified
This spring, a Permian Basin pastor got an unpleasant surprise: a geyser of more than 1.5 million gallons of toxic brine gushing up through the parking lot of the First Baptist Church in Grandfalls. It was a “zombie well”—what happens when the plug on one of the state’s hundreds of thousands of old wells fails, releasing poisonous gas and water onto the property above. These blowouts are dangerous in themselves.
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Oil executives just accidentally exposed the industry’s greatest weakness

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By Saul Elbein
| HEATED By Emily Atkin
A storage tank hold fracking wastewater, also known as produced water, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Drillers in America’s largest oil-producing region are proposing to treat produced water and pour it onto crops and into waterways. (Photo by J Pat Carter/Getty Images) Sometime in the next few months, Texas is set to issue its first permits letting the oil industry pour treated fracking wastewater into rivers and onto cropland.
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