To spend the day with Charlie Barrett of Oilfield Witness as he drives across the Permian Basin in southern New Mexico is to see a side of the country’s energy infrastructure that is known to most but invisible to nearly all. Oil and gas operations like those in the Permian are noisy and often smelly, but Barrett has a camera that makes their invisible, toxic emissions visible. And he sees them everywhere he looks.
Improperly lit flares, leaking storage tanks and diesel-powered compressor station generators spewing geysers of exhaust into the air — all normally invisible, and all captured on Barrett’s camera. Beyond the gases, he also stops to investigate apparent oilfield wastewater spills along the road and explain how the increasing industrial activity around oil and gas production threatens the species that call the Pecos River and its banks home. “We’re not delusional,” he said of his group’s work. “We recognize that the state’s not gonna stop issuing permits to oil and gas companies.” But, he said, “The only solution to this is to stop issuing permits to oil and gas companies.”
