Running for the Texas Railroad Commission, Republican Jim Wright finds himself under fire over state environmental rules and lawsuits that accused him of fraud in the oil and gas industry.
The owner of an oilfield waste services company, Wright denies wrongdoing and blames his problems on a Democratic Party smear job according to a report by the Austin American-Statesman.
If nothing else, South Texas court filings and public records showing more than $180,000 in state fines levied against Wright point to the fractiousness of the oilfield.
Wright, who lives on a ranch outside Orange Grove, 35 miles northwest of Corpus Christi, faces Democrat Chrysta Castañeda, a Dallas oil and gas attorney and engineer, in November for a spot on the three-member Texas Railroad Commission.
At the center of the disputes is DeWitt Recyclable Products, a company Wright started nearly a decade ago near Cuero to take oily muds and other drilling site byproducts and recycle them into crude oil, diesel fuel and cleaned-up dirt.
Wright sold the company in 2014 to out-of-state investors for more than $1 million, but he remained listed as president, according to court filings.
The Railroad Commission sent the facility a cease-and-desist letter and canceled permits in January 2017 after an inspector found waste stockpiled directly on the ground, waste material storage tanks leaking material into the soil and unpermitted stormwater ponds collecting around the machinery and the facility.
In November 2017, Wright agreed to pay for the cleanup of the site and pay the Railroad Commission $181,519 for the violations — even though his attorney had claimed that he did not have ownership or operational control of DeWitt after the sale and that, despite requests, his name was never taken off agency records for the facility.
Wright then sued two of the vendors of the storage tanks, alleging that they were responsible for the cleanup of the material in the tanks. The companies later filed countersuits.
At stake, among other things, is $800,000 that DeWitt had paid to the Railroad Commission in 2016 to ensure a proper cleanup if the facility were to close. Wright has recouped that money, but the storage tank vendors — some of whom have won court judgments recognizing them as rightful creditors — say that Wright was not entitled to the money.
Wright campaign spokesman Silver Vasquez said all that money has gone toward cleanup, which he said totaled $1.5 million.
“All this happened after the sale of the company, but Jim had to make it right for him, the other investors and the community,” he said. “No taxpayer money went to remediate this.”
Source: Austin Statesman-American