摘要：I figured we'd find two, three, four, five leakers and every time I have stuck a bucket in the ground, there's a ******* problem w
I never dreamed when I signed on to here how big this problem was going to be.
我签约时从未料到这个问题会如此严重。
Watch out for snakes.
小心蛇。
They're grumpy.
他们脾气暴躁。
Don't you fall down.
你可别摔倒了。
You're going to want to see this.
你一定得看看这个。
You can see it running out of the surface casing right here.
你可以看到它从表层套管中直接流出。
Bubbles right there.
就在那儿冒泡。
Nobody can come out here and say this well's not leaking.
没人能站出来说这口井没在泄漏。
I figured we'd find two, three, four, five leakers and every time I have stuck a bucket in the ground, there's a ******* problem well.
我原以为我们能找到两三个、三四个、四五个泄漏点，但每次我往地里插个桶，就会发现一个该死的麻烦油井。
The Permian Basin is the world's biggest shale oil production basin and it's really helped to revolutionize the US oil industry and also the US economy over the last 10 years or so.
二叠纪盆地是全球最大的页岩油产区，在过去十年左右的时间里，它确实推动了美国石油工业乃至美国经济的革新。
If the Permian was an OPEC member, it would be as big as Iraq and Kuwait combined.
如果二叠纪盆地是一个欧佩克成员国，其规模将相当于伊拉克和科威特的总和。
What happens over time is the basin becomes like a layer cake where you have different types of rocks and then in those basins, oil and gas develop.
随着时间的推移，盆地会变得像分层蛋糕一样，拥有不同类型的岩石，而在这些盆地中， 石油和天然气得以形成。
But the Permian has a water problem.
但二叠纪盆地面临水资源问题。
For every barrel of oil that is produced in the Permian Basin, you also get about three to five barrels of waste water.
在二叠纪盆地，每生产一桶石油，就会伴随产生约三到五桶的废水。
We call it water, but it's pretty toxic stuff.
我们称之为水，但它其实是相当有毒的物质。
It's as much as five times saltier than the ocean.
其盐度比海洋高出五倍之多。
It contains oil and gas residue, and it contains all other manner of heavy metals and radioactive materials.
它含有油气残渣，以及各种重金属和放射性物质。
The vast majority of that water gets reinjected down into the subsurface.
这些水绝大部分被重新注入地下。
And that reinjection changes the pressures and reactivates existing faults.
这种回注行为改变了地层压力，并重新激活了已有的断层。
The Earthquakes began here just off of campus.
地震就发生在校园外不远处。
There were a series of mid-magnitude three earthquakes, and they caused quite a bit of alarm.
发生了一系列中等强度的三级地震，引发了相当大的恐慌。
The fact that earthquakes even happen in Texas at all, I grew up in Texas all my life, and this is an unusual concept.
德克萨斯州竟然会发生地震， 这事实本身就让我感到惊讶。我在德克萨斯州长大， 对我来说，这可是个新鲜事儿。
Why would you have earthquakes around here?
为什么这里会发生地震呢？
Doesn't make much sense.
这不太说得通。
From 2021 to 2023, you had a couple hundred earthquakes per year, and we started writing stories about how Texas could be on track to eclipse California for the most earthquakes.
从2021年到2023年，每年发生了数百次地震，我们开始撰写报道，探讨德克萨斯州可能如何超越加利福尼亚州，成为地震最频繁的州。
There is no doubt now that the earthquakes in the Permian Basin are largely driven by oil and gas operations.
现在毫无疑问，二叠纪盆地的地震主要是由石油和天然气作业引发的。
But most earthquakes out in the Permian Basin are not generated directly from hydrofracking.
然而，在二叠纪盆地发生的大多数地震并非直接由水力压裂引起。
It's more about the produced water.
问题的关键在于产出水。
So both the operator response group and the regulator decided that they had to do something.
因此，运营响应小组和监管机构都认为必须采取行动。
How about we shift wastewater disposal from deep to shallow?
我们何不将废水处理从深井转向浅层排放呢？
So as you're disposing more in shallow wells, they're starting to build up the pressure in the shallow part of the Earth's crust and eventually that leads to water leaking and becoming geysers.
因此，随着你在浅井中处理更多废水，地壳浅层开始积聚压力，最终导致水泄漏并形成喷泉。
Damn it, I hate it when I get wet.
该死，我讨厌被淋湿。
I call them zombie wells because they are supposed to be dead and like zombies, they rise from the grave and they're un-killable because you have to kill the source, which is the produced water.
我称它们为“僵尸井”，因为这些井本应已废弃，却如同僵尸般从坟墓中复活，难以彻底消灭，因为问题的根源——产出水，必须被根除。
So this is the pipe that's supposed to protect our fresh water from the oil and gas and I've got oil and gas leaking from below, outside of the surface casing.
这就是那条本应保护我们淡水免受油气污染的管道，而我却发现油气从下方、地表套管外部渗漏出来。
My name is Sarah Stogner, and I'm the lawyer that came out here and started seeing problems with these wells.
我叫莎拉·斯托格纳，是来到这里并开始发现这些井存在问题的律师。
We are digging up wells because they're leaking this black stinky stuff, which is crude oil that's supposed to be 2,400 feet below the ground.
我们正在挖掘油井，因为它们在泄漏这种黑色、难闻的物质，这些原油本应深藏于地下2400英尺处。
And because they've been over injecting water from the new horizontal wells, it's pushing this stuff up and through these old well bores.
由于他们从新的水平井中过度注水，这股力量正将这些物质推升并通过这些老旧的井眼。
If the Permian Basin is one like huge, giant cake and you've stabbed it enough that it's kind of fragile and then you start taking icing out and that oil comes with water and it's not clean water, it's toxic, it's nasty.
如果把二叠纪盆地比作一块巨大的蛋糕，你已经戳得它有些脆弱了，然后你开始把上面的糖霜（石油）取走，而这石油伴随着污水，不是清澈的水， 而是有毒的， 令人不快的。
Well, you put it into a shallower layer.
那么，你会将其注入更浅的地层。
That shallower layer isn't used to having all of that water in it.
那较浅的地层并不习惯容纳如此大量的水。
And now you've got all these straws that were poked and pressure will find the path of least resistance.
现在，这些被戳破的漏洞使得压力寻找到了阻力最小的路径。
And so now what we've got is a disaster of a cake that's collapsing over here.
于是现在我们面临的是一场灾难性的局面，这块蛋糕正在这里崩塌。
It's rising up over here.
这里正在上涨。
The icing is leaking between layers.
冰层之间出现渗漏。
It's coming up at surface. That's what's happening.
它正从地表冒出来。事情就是这样。
I think, I didn't realize how bad the situation was and Chevron already did.
我认为， 我并未意识到情况有多糟糕，而雪佛龙公司已经了然于心。
And the Railroad Commission already did.
铁路委员会已经有所行动。
Do they recognize that there's a problem?
他们是否意识到问题的存在？
Yes.
是的。
Are they still trying to get rid of any responsibility?
他们还在试图推卸责任吗？
Yes.
是的。
The first thing you need to know about the Railroad Commission of Texas is that it's nothing to do with trains.
首先，你需要了解的是，德克萨斯铁路委员会与火车毫无关系。
It's the oil and gas regulator in Texas.
这是德克萨斯州的石油和天然气监管机构。
Over the years, there've been plenty of other reporting over these toxic geysers erupting seemingly randomly around the oil fields.
多年来，关于这些有毒喷泉在油田周围似乎随机喷发的报道屡见不鲜。
We really wanted to kind of get to the bottom of this to say, what is the relationship between the regulator and the industry and what did they know?
我们确实希望深入探究这一问题，以明确监管机构与行业之间的关联，以及他们究竟了解多少情况。
When did they know it? So we submitted a bunch of Freedom of Information requests and we received back a huge volume of information.
他们何时得知此事？我们提交了一系列《信息自由法》请求，随后收到了大量资料。
The more we studied it, the more we started to build up a timeline of what went on and the methods they used to balance the problem of earthquakes versus the problem of water disposal.
我们越是深入研究，就越能构建出事件的时间线，以及他们如何权衡地震问题与废水处理问题所采用的方法。
The Railroad Commission in mid-2023 agreed to consider easing restrictions around shallow disposal.
2023年中，德克萨斯铁路委员会同意考虑放宽对浅层处理的限制。
So here we have a document from October 2023 which states, quite clearly, that shallow disposal has some serious problems.
因此，我们这里有一份2023年10月的文件，明确指出浅层处理存在一些严重问题。
They actually state that they are seeing leaks as a result of shallow water disposals.
他们实际上指出，由于浅层废水处理，他们观察到了泄漏现象。
They say breakouts reported by field operations could be linked to shallow disposal.
据现场作业报告，喷发可能与浅层废水处理有关。
This is a presentation from the Railroad Commission to the Texas Pipeline Association.
这是来自铁路委员会向德克萨斯州管道协会所作的报告。
This is not a presentation to the public, but again, it shows that the Railroad Commission was fully aware of some of the hazards that were coming from increased reservoir pressure, indeed, I have a slide here titled: 'Hazards from Increased Reservoir Pressure' and it includes drilling hazards; well damage; tubular corrosion; harm to legacy production; confinement failure; surface flows; and harm to underground sources of drinking water, which raises a lot of questions.
这并非面向公众的展示，但再次表明，铁路委员会完全意识到储层压力增加所带来的某些危害。实际上，我这里有一张标题为“储层压力增加的危害”的幻灯片，其中列明了钻井风险、井损、管材腐蚀、对传统产量的损害、围限失效、地表流以及对地下饮用水源的危害，这引发了许多疑问。
Why proceed when you know that there are clear and present dangers?
既然明知存在明显且迫在眉睫的危险，为何还要继续进行？
If we want to continue to produce oil and gas in Texas, in the United States, we have to find a solution to the water problem.
如果我们希望继续在得克萨斯州、在美国生产石油和天然气，就必须找到解决水资源问题的办法。
What began a couple of years ago was an effort to start to look at other ways to reuse this water.
几年前开始的尝试，旨在探索其他方式来再利用这些水。
The treated water, it's clear, you don't see any particulate in it.
处理过的水清澈透明，你看不到任何悬浮颗粒。
This is essentially distilled quality water.
这基本上是蒸馏水级别的品质。
We look at this desalinated produced water as another way to supplement that fresh water and provide another source.
我们将这种经过脱盐处理的采出水视为补充淡水的另一种方式，并提供额外的来源。
That fresh water can then be used for other industrial applications like cooling towers, things like building, in construction materials, for agriculture.
这些淡水随后可用于其他工业领域，如冷却塔、建筑材料以及农业等。
There's a lot of optimism for what can happen.
对于可能发生的事情，大家抱有很高的期望。
What you're really hoping is that you can maybe claw out about half of the produced water that is coming out of these wells right now.
你真正希望的是，或许能从这些油井当前产出的水中回收大约一半的废水。
That would give a lot of breathing room to the oil and gas industry.
这将为石油和天然气行业提供很大的喘息空间。
We're now at the point where we wonder how fast this can sort of be made economical for the oil companies, to clean it at scale.
我们现在正处在一个阶段，思考如何尽快让石油公司实现经济效益，大规模地净化这些水。
How fast can they get the technology working properly, where it's reliable?
他们能多快让这项技术正常运作，使其变得可靠？
And so that's a big 'if.' 2018, 2019, we were talking about 8 to 10 million barrels of water a day.
因此，这是一个巨大的“如果”。2018年、2019年，我们曾讨论过每日处理800万至1000万桶水的问题。
Two years ago, we were talking about 18 million barrels, and now we're talking about 25 to 30 million barrels.
两年前，我们还在讨论1800万桶的产量，如今已跃升至2500万至3000万桶。
And these horizontal wells, the older they get, the more water they produce to oil.
而这些水平井， 随着使用年限增长，产水量相对于石油的比例也在增加。
The problem is not getting better.
问题并未好转。
It's only going to get worse.
情况只会越来越糟。
People just think of West Texas as a barren wasteland.
人们只把西德克萨斯看作一片荒芜之地。
And that's not what it is.
事实并非如此。
No, we got some wildlife.
不，我们这儿还有一些野生动物。
There's deer that run through here, there's bobcats.
这里有奔跑的鹿，还有野猫。
And this should be a huge concern for the Railroad Commission but it's not in their backyard.
这本应成为铁路委员会的一大关切，但问题并未出现在他们的后院。
来源：英语东
