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Oil and Gas in the Great State of Tejas: Centering Land Tenure Histories of Fracking Geographies Within the Texas-Mexico Border Landscape

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Oil and Gas in the Great State of Tejas: Centering Land Tenure Histories of Fracking Geographies Within the Texas-Mexico Border Landscape Copyright by Andrea Christina Wirsching 2020 The Dissertation Committee for Andrea Christina Wirsching Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Oil and Gas in the Great State of Tejas: Centering Land Tenure Histories of Fracking Geographies within the Texas-Mexico Border Landscape Committee: Bjørn Sletto, Supervisor Elizabeth Mueller Robert Paterson Nicole Guidotti-Hernández Michael Webber Oil and Gas in the Great State of Tejas: Centering Land Tenure Histories of Fracking Geographies within the Texas-Mexico Border Landscape by Andrea Christina Wirsching Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2020 Acknowledgements The time has finally come. I would not have made it this far without the guidance and support of the members of my committee. As my dissertation chair, and my PR adviser for my master’s degree, Bjørn has admirably mentored and pushed and always believed in me. Liz and Nicole – I am so grateful for your steadfast and continued support over the years. This would not have been possible without my phd cohort-mates, and other phd friends and colleagues over the last several years: Sarah, Leah, Kate, Nishtha, Kristina, Andrea, Jane, Adrian, K, and so many others. And of course, my dear friends and family. Thank you. iv Abstract Oil and Gas in the Great State of Tejas: Centering Land Tenure Histories of Fracking Geographies within the Texas-Mexico Border Landscape Andrea Christina Wirsching, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2020 Supervisor: Bjørn Sletto This dissertation examines the Texas-Mexico border oil and gas landscape and the unequitable distributions of impacts and benefits these extractive activities produce. I situate my work within critical, interdisciplinary literature on the relationship between the exploitation of natural resources and wealth distribution, and the explicit problematization of inherent uniqueness of border spaces. I utilized a critical, multi-disciplinary framework drawing from political ecology, planning, and border studies, to critique and inform more nuanced vulnerability assessments and literatures across temporal and spatial scales. I argue consideration of the role of who owns what and how they obtained it in policy and planning, not just land use, is key to understanding the reproduction of oppressive and exclusive political structures and land rights regimes along the border. Using a mixed method approach to examine this exemplary case study, I integrated spatial, quantitative methods with qualitative interviews and archival document analysis to trace the historical land tenure patterns of property ownership in Webb County, as well as conduct v vulnerability and risk assessments. Using governance geographies as a spatial and conceptual lens for analyses, I demonstrate how land tenure and ownership illuminate the important role of the gradations of informality, and by extension the state, is in producing social vulnerabilities in borderlands. The following themes emerged from analysis of my case study: relationship between land wealth and political power and vulnerability; tensions between land control, stewardship, and exploitation; and the value in learning from histories of land tenure and borderlands in reconceptualizing, identifying, and developing policies that aim to address vulnerability. My research suggests the confluence of physical and regulatory remnants of past colonial powers along the border region continue to be visible and influence the balance and power and distribution of public resources. Furthermore, their corresponding land rights regimes, dispossession via subsequent sovereign land grants, and generational wealth accumulation and political power from these activities, are significant in shaping this particular oil and gas producing landscape. As one of the least regulated, pro-property rights and pro-oil-and-gas states in the country, this study serves as an example of what happens when wealth and political power continues to fortify the structural mechanisms that, in the absence of regulatory controls and avenues for redistribution and remediation, effectively rendering moot a government meant to serve and protect everyone else. vi Table of Contents List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................1 1.1.The U.S. Shale ‘Boom’ and Massive Hydraulic Fracturing and Horizontal Drilling ..................................................................................................................5 1. 2. Critical Interdisciplinary Research Design .......................................................10 1.3. Chapter Organization .........................................................................................12 Chapter 2: Oil and Gas in South Texas ..............................................................................14 2.1 Geographies of Fracking in Texas ......................................................................15 Oil and Gas in Texas, 1850s–1930s ..............................................................19 Spindletop .....................................................................................................21 Establishment of Texas Railroad Commission .............................................22 The Great Oil and Gas State of Texas, 1930s–1970s ...................................23 Surviving Decades of Oil Crises to the Shale Boom ....................................24 Massive-scaled Hydraulic Fracturing and Horizontal Drilling .....................25 2.2. Current Shale Oil and Gas Technologies and Research ....................................26 What determines the location of a well? .......................................................27 How is Land Used? .......................................................................................33 What are the Methods of Transport of Oil, Gas, and Refined Products? .....33 Empirical Research on Fracking ...................................................................34 2.3. Fracking Policies and Governance in Texas ......................................................43 2.4. Conclusion .........................................................................................................59 vii Chapter 3: Urbanization, Land Acquisition, and Tenure on the Border ............................61 3.1. Land Tenure and Rights: Contextualizing Relationships between Land and People in the Southwestern U.S. .........................................................................63 Consolidation of Power and Influence ..........................................................71 Commodification of Land and Her Resources ..............................................72 3.2. A Mestiso Colonial Imaginary: Succession of Race and Class, Land, and Power on the Border ...........................................................................................74 Chapter 4: Theoretical Framework ....................................................................................79 Introduction ...............................................................................................................79 4.1. Principle Tenets, Schools of Thought, and Research Approaches in Environmental Justice .........................................................................................82 4. 2 Political Ecology and Its Contributions to Environmental Justice ....................91 4.3 Chicanx Border Studies ......................................................................................93 Chapter 5: Research Design ...............................................................................................99 5.2. Overview of Research Design .........................................................................105 Land Tenure: From Free and Clear Ownership and Access to No Rights ..105 Governance Geographies: Governance and Land Controls ........................108 Jurisdiction boundaries: County, ETJ, Incorporated/Municipality .............110 Texas Border Colonias ................................................................................113 Spatial Configurations of Vulnerability and Precarity: Inequitable Distributions of Power and Wealth .......................................................113 Chapter 6: Using Vulnerability Assessment and Multi-Hazard Suitability Analysis to Assess Impacts of Fracking .......................................................................................117 6.1. Vulnerability Assessment ................................................................................118 Genealogy of Social Vulnerability Mapping ..............................................118 Data Organization and Processing for Analyses .........................................121 viii Data Sources and Mapping Social Vulnerability Indexes ..........................122 Social Vulnerability Indexing and Analysis Results ..................................125 SOVI Limitations within this Context ........................................................128 6.2. Multi-Hazard Suitability Analysis ...................................................................128
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