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[anothername12]

That’s right. These ranchers are basically reaping the side effects of that sweet mineral royalty they invited into their lands.

If you’re ever in Midland, you’ll find it smells like ass. I think in another decade or two it might be uninhabitable and maybe acutely toxic.

Also from the article, it seems the railroad commission is paying for clean up?? Is the public paying for the externalities of rancher and mineral extraction?

[jandrese]

The public is almost always on the hook for this kind of environmental damage. Even if you can track down the company that did it and prove that it was them it will be stuck in the courts for decades while the problem only gets worse.

[NotYourLawyer]

Sometimes the land owners have some of the mineral rights. Often they don’t.

[rayiner]

Money is just a proxy for goods and services in the economy. Cheap energy (along with cheap Latin American labor) is what allows Americans to live in houses twice the size of someone from say France or Germany, and drive their kids around in 5,000 pound SUVs.

[kjkjadksj]

Also more disposable income over all. Not to mention no millions homeless from midcentury warfare, generous federally supported housing loans came instead.