East texas communities band together to stop controversial oil waste operations threatening rural life

For fifteen years, Debrah Linn has nurtured her slice of rural paradise near the Louisiana border, raising chickens, miniature donkeys, pet geese, and longhorn cattle on her peaceful Texas farmette. But that tranquility is now under threat from an unexpected source: oil waste disposal operations that have moved into the bucolic countryside she calls home.

Linn and her neighbors across East Texas are mobilizing against a network of oil waste pits operated by a company with a deeply troubling track record. The operator behind these facilities has accumulated dozens of regulatory violations and was linked to a worker’s death, raising serious questions about safety standards and environmental protection in the region. These waste pits, designed to handle byproducts from oil and gas operations, have become a flashpoint for communities concerned about contamination of their air, water, and soil.

The grassroots resistance movement reflects broader tensions between Texas’s booming energy sector and rural residents who fear their way of life is being sacrificed for industrial profits. Local families worry about the long-term health impacts on their children, livestock, and the pristine landscapes they’ve called home for generations. As more waste facilities appear across East Texas’s pastoral countryside, residents are discovering that their individual fights are part of a larger pattern—one that has united diverse communities in an unprecedented push for stronger environmental protections and corporate accountability.

This collaborative investigation by the Texas Observer and Inside Climate News reveals how rural Texans are taking on powerful energy interests to protect their communities and environment.