They are drilling a gas well on my property in Shelby County, TX. The drill site is about 300' from a spring. While they were building the pad, we had a big rain and tons of sand washed into the spring and caved in about 40' of banks around the spring. It is still flowing, but the entire landscape around the spring has changed. I don't own the mineral rights and I'm getting tired of getting run over by these people. They built a 3/4 ac frac pit and put a 6ML liner that would be great for a pond, but that garbage bag will not hold water for 2 months. I told them to just fill it in when they finished. I priced a 20ml liner for $20,740 installed. Should I call Natural Resourses Conservation Service or the EPA about the Spring or try to bargain for a 20ml liner. Will either of these offices help to clean up the spring?

The nrcs will not the EPA will not pay either but they be able to make the oil company do something.

I would try and get a 20 mil or bigger installed betweeen you and the oil company.

Call the Texas Railroad Commission they are the agency with responsibility. First call the company and tell them you are going to contact the RRC and EPA and see if they will fix things. But first take pics and or video of the situation.

The Drilling Co. says they will line the pond with clay or pay to fill it in. About how much does clay cost, and about how many tons would be needed for a 3/4 arce pond, 15' deep?

There you go! Problem solved!

Just roughly figuring, 1600 yards, if they use 2' of clay. That's a lot of truckloads of clay.

bob, i get about double what you got w/ my quick figurin....maybe i did something wrong..?

this is assuming you want the pond to hold water and have a fishin hole rick.......

3/4 acre is roughly 33,000 ft2
if you wanted to cover the entire pond bottom 2 feet thick (which is probably overkill) that would be ~66,000 ft3 or ~2400 yards. if the clay is moist, 1 yard = 1.5 tons, so thats ~3600 tons.....which equates to even more truckloads......perhaps 150 to 200 truckloads at 20 tons per load.

depending on yer soils there rick you might get away with 2 feet of clay covereage just in the deep end and feather that out into the shallow ends to less than a foot....maybe be close to bobad's guess on yardage needed.

nevertheless, at the costs i paid for clay, that be ALOT of $$ but this is CA, and nothing is cheap. for me the clay was relatively cheap (~$10/ton) but the trucking very costly (~$250 per load at 24 tons per load). my budget dictated ~$4k and thats about what i spent to get between 150 and 200 tons of imported clay, unfortunately i needed more, i didnt get it, and my pond still leaks some, but at least it holds water year round.

That's what happens when I figure things in my head.

Sorry about that Rick.

bob, yer probably about right on with what rick could get away with to seal the pond. i think covering entire pond w/ 2 feet would probably be overkill, but we're all just guessing not knowing the soil types or conditions at rick's place.

rick, are clay soils present anywhere on yer property? i think in most cases imported pure clay works best when mixed w/ soil native to the site....the trick is to get the right ratio which could be arrived at by testing different mixes in buckets to get the one that holds water w/ the least amount of imported clay. this way you might only need a fraction of what was suggested above.