The Republican gubernatorial candidate says the proposed aluminum plant will be safe for nearby farms and cattle. But residents have challenged some of his claims about fluoride emissions.
Regulators say the Ponca City carbon black plant failed to meet pollution limits, missed required equipment testing and violated a 2015 federal agreement to improve air quality.
Oklahoma restricts oil field wastewater injection within a half-mile of public water wells. Regulators have let companies do it anyway. But in the city of Enid, officials are pushing back against one of the state’s biggest industries.
After Jon Echols and Jeff Starling debated, we checked the facts and found a few statements that weren’t entirely true.
Join The Frontier and ProPublica for a reception and public screening of this documentary film in Tulsa on May 20, which features a local reporter’s journey to understand Oklahoma’s oilfield wastewater pollution problem.
Oklahoma took on an ambitious project to catalog all of the state’s injection wells, which shoot toxic waste generated by oil drilling back into the ground. Despite records showing risk of drinking water pollution, the state chose not to act.
Across Oklahoma, oilfield wastewater has continued to surface from the ground — even as regulators failed to contain it. This investigation examines how oversight fell short, how contamination spread and how families were left to navigate the consequences.
Residents near Enid say the smell of an oilfield waste disposal site made them feel sick. State officials weren’t sure who was in charge of enforcement.