Plumbers in Hardin, Texas

What decades-old oil activity can leave behind

Most of this land is perfectly fine to live on and to drill a water well into. The exceptions trace back to something specific left by an operation that stopped decades ago, and it is worth ruling in or out before assuming either way.

Abandoned wellheads should have been plugged, and not all of them were done correctly at the time. The Railroad Commission holds records of plugged and orphaned wells in Texas, and it is worth checking that database against your specific parcel before drilling a new water well nearby.

Old pipeline right-of-way can still carry a legal easement even when the pipe itself is long gone. That affects where you can dig, and hitting an inactive line is still a real hazard even if nothing has flowed through it in decades.

Brine and produced water from old operations can affect soil and shallow groundwater nearby. This is a known issue around historic oilfields generally, and it is a reasonable thing to test for if a well near an old site tastes or smells different than expected.

What to check before drilling or building near old oilfield land

A little research before committing to a well site saves a much worse conversation after it is drilled.

Check the Railroad Commission's well records for your parcel and its immediate surroundings. This is public information and it tells you whether anything is documented on or near your specific land.

Call 811 before any digging, every time, regardless of how old you think a line might be. An abandoned pipeline is not automatically dead ground, and locating services exist specifically to prevent an expensive and dangerous mistake.

Test a new or existing well for anything unusual if the land's history includes oil activity. It is not automatic that a well nearby is affected, and testing settles the question rather than leaving it as a worry.

How we work

Tell us what you know about a property's history and we will factor that into where we site a well or how we test one that already exists. None of this should discourage building here; it just means checking a specific thing before assuming the ground is clean.

We cover Hardin, Liberty and the rest of this part of Liberty County, and old oilfield land is a normal part of what we work around out here.