Its no secret who owns this beautiful ranch, now, along the Pecos River in northern New Mexico, south of Santa Fe. It's owned by Scott Sheffield, who recently sold his tight oil company in Saudi America, in Texas, to Exxon.

I have fished the Pecos River thru this ranch, and miles up and down stream; there are stocked rainbows in it and some big Brown trout that can get to 18 inches. But if you can get a little Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout like this handsome little fella, to take a little midge on a warm summer afternoon...you have done something big time. He is rare and picky, and very unique to New Mexico. There is some trout over on the west side of the state, in the Gila Mountains, a Gila Trout, and is equally elusive and unique.

230 miles downriver from the Forked Lightening Ranch a lot of Texas tight oil companies now think they can dump their produced water from the Wolfcamp and Bone Springs formations into the Pecos River.

No, there are no trout down in the Pecos River in Reeves County, but the river down there is still alive with aquatic life and fish of many different species. I am a Texas boy and like my Texas Rivers clean and full of life.

There is no way produced water from tight oil wells in West Texas can be dumped into this River without harm. To treat produced water that would comply with Texas Surface Water Quality Standards, the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System and the Federal Clean Water Act is very expensive and the tight oil sector is trying to get a lot of those standards changed so they can dump the water on the ground and in the Pecos. They have to go thru the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to get that done but the POTUS and the EPA is leaning on the TCEQ to change the standards. 65% of Permian Basin tight oil, by the way, is exported to foreign countries. Using massive amounts of debt.

Exxon who bought Saudi America from Sheffield, and I am quite certain helped pay for the Forked Lightening Ranch, is one of the companies who sends its water to Texas for disposal and/or probable discharge. Mr. Sheffield and Exxon don't get on too well these days; who does get on with Exxon?

https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/shale-tycoon-claims-exxon-ceo-124336695.html 

Exxon produces 800,000 BWPD from Eddy County, New Mexico alone, and sends most of it across the State line for deep injection into Reeves County. New Mexico sends 3,5 MM BWPD to Texas for getting rid of (BEG). The problem is we have no more pore space left to inject produced water in this part of West Texas.

I guarantee New Mexico, nor Exxon, nor anybody else would discharge this so called, treated produced water into the Pecos River upstream of the Forked Lightening Ranch. Scott would have a shit fit, as all of New Mexico would.

In Texas, we don't seem to mind. We like earthquakes, shit water blowing up out of the ground around abandoned wells, flaring (wasting) natural gas and if we foul our rivers here in Texas with produced water that does not meet Texas and Federal standards, it's OK... we're on a mission from God. For campaign money, votes and $70 MM dollar high school football stadiums.

People can be a little picky about what happens in their own back yard and, at the same time, not care one iota what happens in other yards downstream.

Sheffield is a staunch conservationist and environmentalist. Maybe he cares. He has a special connection to the Pecos River.