A protected sinkhole in the Texas Hill Country has expanded significantly, and researchers are documenting measurable ground uplift across parts of West Texas. Both developments reflect long-term changes beneath the state’s surface.
The Devil’s Sinkhole, a 350-foot-deep cave in Edwards County, has been a National Natural Landmark since 1972. It formed over thousands of years as underground limestone dissolved and collapsed. In October 2026, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department added roughly 1,200 acres to the protected area, bringing the total to more than 3,000 acres. The agency also plans about 10 miles of new trails, plus camping facilities and a future visitor center. Access to the sinkhole itself still requires reservations and supervision, given the unstable terrain.
The expansion reflects a broader awareness that this part of Texas sits on karst terrain, a type of landscape where slightly acidic rainwater slowly dissolves limestone over millennia. That process creates underground channels and caves, and occasional collapses form sinkholes. The same porous rock system, known as the Edwards Aquifer, supplies drinking water to about two million people, including residents of San Antonio, New Braunfels, and San Marcos. Because the aquifer is karst-based, it responds quickly to rainfall and drought.
In 2026, the aquifer experienced both relief and continued strain. On June 3 of that year, the Edwards Aquifer Authority reported that its key monitoring well, J-17, had risen to 632.7 feet above sea level. That allowed the authority to ease restrictions from Stage Four to Stage Three, reducing mandatory cutbacks from 40 percent to 35 percent. It was the first easing after roughly a year of emergency conditions during a drought now in its seventh year. By August, dry conditions returned, and the authority chose to keep Stage Three in place rather than risk another escalation.
Elsewhere in the Hill Country, conditions remained more severe. A monitoring well called Love Lady, tied to the Trinity Aquifer, stayed near a critical threshold throughout the spring. By August, water levels had recovered about 4.3 feet, settling at 458.2 feet above sea level, still barely above the drought line. In the nearby Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District, all monitored wells remained below their lowest recorded historical levels, making that stretch the worst on record in more than 20 years of documentation.
While Central Texas deals with shrinking groundwater, West Texas faces the opposite problem. In April 2026, residents of Grandfalls noticed salty wastewater rising through the ground in the parking lot of a local church. Over eight days, more than 1.5 million gallons reached the surface before the Texas Railroad Commission shut down nearby injection wells. Investigators described it as the most significant oil-field wastewater spill affecting a populated area in Texas history. The First Baptist Church congregation held services across the street while the building was assessed.
That incident fits a wider pattern in the Permian Basin. The oil and gas industry injects large volumes of produced water, a salty byproduct, into deep porous rock layers meant to contain it permanently. In some cases, the pressure builds and finds existing pathways, including old wells. Landowners near Grandfalls suspect the wastewater surfaced through a previously plugged well.
Satellite radar measurements, a technique known as InSAR, show parts of the Delaware Basin rising by tens of centimeters over the past decade. In some places, the uplift has approached 24 centimeters per year. One location in Crane County rose about 20 centimeters annually over a pressured wastewater disposal facility. After a well incident in January 2022 caused a brief drop, the ground continued rising at about 24 centimeters per year, accumulating 53.2 centimeters by late 2023. The cause of the continued uplift after the well was sealed remains under investigation.
Pressure from injection can also affect dormant faults. In 2020, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake near the town of Menton in Loving County became the largest induced quake ever recorded in Texas. Seismologists attributed it to wastewater injection nearby. The Delaware Basin now accounts for about 90 percent of all magnitude 3 or greater earthquakes in Texas, and most of that activity is linked to human activity rather than natural tectonics. The region has recorded hundreds of such quakes annually since 2018.
In response, the Texas Railroad Commission established its first seismic response area in 2021, a zone where injection permits can be suspended or limited when nearby seismic activity rises. Three such zones now exist in the Permian Basin. Some operators have shifted to shallower injection depths, though researchers at the Center for Injection and Seismicity have noted that this approach carries its own risks, including surface leaks and contamination of nearby groundwater.
A related concern is the growing number of abandoned oil and gas wells. As of April 2026, Texas counted more than 12,000 abandoned wells with no financially responsible operator, a 37 percent increase in a single year, the largest annual jump the state has recorded. Each of these wells is a potential route for pressure to escape. In the fiscal year 2026, the Railroad Commission plugged a record 2,022 wells, exceeding its legislative target by about 19 percent at a cost of $125.6 million. But new abandoned wells are accumulating faster than they can be addressed. The commission now estimates that plugging its current backlog will cost $202 million.
The risk is not hypothetical. In October 2024, a geyser of wastewater and hydrogen sulfide gas erupted from an old well near Toyah, in the same stretch of West Texas already affected by uplift and induced earthquakes. Investigators tied the event to pressurized fluids escaping through aging well infrastructure, a mechanism similar to what landowners near Grandfalls suspect caused the church parking lot spill.
Abandoned wells may also be linked to at least one sinkhole in Jim Wells County, where a farm worker was injured and harvested hay equipment fell into the ground. Irrigation lines were damaged, and the dairy farm had to discard its milk production for five months. The landowners suspect nearby pipeline construction destabilized the soil. A spokesperson for Kinder Morgan, which operates pipelines in the area, said in September 2026 that the company would investigate any sinkholes connected to its infrastructure and noted that unexplained ground collapse near pipeline equipment could be a safety concern.
Similar issues exist beyond Texas. An ABC News investigation published in October 2026 documented abandoned mines beneath homes, highways, and communities across the country. Some have caused property damage and displacement, and in a few documented cases, fatalities. The specific mechanisms differ from oil and gas wells, but the broader problem is the same: industrial excavations left behind without adequate documentation or maintenance, deteriorating long after the companies that created them have disappeared.
Texas is monitoring these conditions in real time. The Railroad Commission, the Edwards Aquifer Authority, and research groups such as CISR continue to track groundwater levels, ground movement, seismic activity, and well conditions. The data available so far shows that the state’s subsurface is changing in ways that require ongoing attention.
