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Wednesday, October 28, 2026 • Sunny, windy, warm. ☀️
Poll results:
We received 281 votes on the Tuesday poll, “Should Oklahoma judges be required to forgive court fines and fees for people who cannot afford to pay?”
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes, if they qualify under the law (198)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No, judges should have discretion (38)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Only in certain circumstances (34)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Not sure (11)
New poll question at the bottom of today’s newsletter. (You can also suggest a poll question by emailing me at [email protected].)
This oil company is linked to 1,000 pollution incidents and other violations. Oklahoma never punished it.
Photo illustration by Jovelle Tamayo/ProPublica. Source images: Nick Oxford for ProPublica, courtesy of Mike Faulkner, and obtained in an open records request from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
By Nick Bowlin, for The Frontier and ProPublica
👉 Click here to support this newsroom
Staff at an Oklahoma regulatory agency spent over a year building a case against Citation Oil & Gas, a company notorious for oil field pollution. Instead of disciplining the company, agency leaders chose to let it resume operations.
**
In June 2023, staff at an Oklahoma regulatory agency were fed up. The state isn’t known for cracking down on oil and gas companies for polluting the environment, but for over a year, the staff had been building a case to punish Citation Oil & Gas, one of the nation’s largest privately owned oil companies.
About 30 miles north of the Texas border, toxic wastewater was gushing from the ground outside the small city of Ardmore. In the mile-wide oil field known as the Bayou, an oily sheen glistened on creeks and long streaks of salt scarred the land. The so-called purges, bubbling up among stands of oak and walnut trees, also threatened drinking water sources, drawing attention from the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a federal report.
State investigators pinned the blame on Citation’s injection wells, which pump wastewater from oil production back underground at high pressures and volumes in order to produce more oil. But this injection came with risks.
Days earlier, the agency had asked Citation to cut injection pressures in half. The company refused, prompting staff at the oil division of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulator, to recommend an official punishment through the agency’s court system.
“This will be an important case to get some of these purges stopped and particularly concerning Citation’s operations,” Danny Ray, an agency manager at the time, emailed his colleagues.
He restated the urgency three days later in an email to oil division leaders and Citation officials: “We consider this an emergency situation that needs to be addressed promptly.”
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The Oklahoma Rundown 📰
Editor’s note: Links requiring subscriptions have an *.
Here’s what’s happening in Oklahoma today:
OKC approves first mega-data center with strict zoning terms (The Oklahoman)*
Republican gubernatorial candidate’s campaign loans near $13M (Oklahoma Voice)
Oklahoma joins multi-state lawsuit against Dollar General (KFOR)
'Constitutional absurdity': Sotomayor, Gorsuch condemn double prosecution of immigrant in Oklahoma (KOSU)
Oklahoma lawmakers give district attorneys $500K for Tulsa, Muscogee Nation jurisdiction fight (KOSU)
Inola town administrator plans to retire as residents call for his removal (KJRH)
Tecumseh superintendent and assistant superintendent placed on leave amid coach investigation (KOCO)
25-year-old veteran killed while selling chain outside Oklahoma City bank, police say (KOCO)
Medical Examiner rules death of missing Oklahoma 4-year-old, father as murder-suicide (KXII)
Oklahoma City health fair removes hepatitis C testing barriers for people experiencing homelessness (KOSU)
Ardmore restaurant manager arrested on lewd acts to a child charges, accused of inappropriate relationship with employee (KXII)
What’s the deal with Oklahoma’s feral hog population? (KGOU)
Wednesday Poll
What should Oklahoma do when an oil company repeatedly violates environmental rules?
Explain this to me!
What’s happening in Oklahoma that doesn’t make sense to you? Send me your question. I may answer it here in Oklahoma Memo or turn it into a video.
Email: [email protected]
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