Environment group says UT System does not balance student interests and environmental precautions

Lisa Dreher

AUSTIN, TX – Advocacy organization Environment Texas said University Lands, which leases West Texas lands mainly for oil and gas extraction to generate revenue for educational institutions such as the University of Texas at Austin, lacks a policy on methane leakage.

Environment Texas executive director, Luke Metzger, said gas extraction on these leased lands results in excessively leaked methane.

“They need to do more, we’ve been calling UT to cut methane emissions in half in the next five years and to do that by changing their field operating manual to require companies to reduce this pollution,” Metzger said.

Currently, University Lands comprise of 2.1 million acres across nine counties in West Texas, which sits atop an oil-rich area called the Permian Basin, spanning across West Texas and part of New Mexico. The Permian Basin has spurred an oil and gas boom, and according to the U.S. Energy InformaTion Administration, it averages “10.4 billion cubic feet per day” of gas production as of June 2018.

University Lands leases land through land and commercial contracts to fund the University of Texas System and University of Texas A&M Systems.

The revenue from these contracts stream into the Permanent University Fund, a state fund for Texas public higher education institutions.

University Lands made $118 million in its 2017 lease sale, with sales averaging $2,700 an acre, according to its site. In its recent sale, it made $24,000,000 in bonus revenue.

Funds from University Lands generated into the PUF is then distributed and funds the Available University Fund, which makes up 10% of UT-Austin’s allocated 2017-2018 fiscal year budget.

From the AUF, UT-Austin receives annually $5 million. UT announced in April it would guarantee financial aid for families of incoming students this fall whose incomes are up to $100,000, and those with up to $30,000 incomes will be guaranteed to receive enough aid to completely cover tution. Although the aid is guaranteed, it may not entirely be given based on allocated funding the University can provide.

This program is funded entirely by the AUF, and so without the University Lands revenue, it would not be possible.

UT System director of media relations, Karen Adler, said in an email that UT System’s involvement in University Lands is crucial for funding research and academics to further UT students’ success.

“At the UT System, it funds life-changing research that leads to better treatments for deadly diseases and new discoveries that improve our quality of life,” Adler said. “It’s also used to recruit and retain nationally-renowned faculty and build much-needed classrooms and labs so that UT students receive a top-quality education.”

Joe Peterson, University Lands surface of interest manager, said the entity wants to be transparent, but its job is not to regulate activities because it is merely a “landlord” for these companies.

Peterson said there is already language in its guidelines companies must abide concerning harmful environmental impact.

“It is written into the lease contract that they have to abide by all the state and federal regulations,” Peterson said.

The entity states in its “Board for Lease Rules and Regulations” guide, leasees must abide by Texas and federal environmental regulations, report, resolve, test and record any activity which “adversely” affects the surface or atmosphere.

Environment Texas is a project of Environment America Research and Policy Center, a network with state branches which advocate in policy-making and on university campuses for environmental protections, such as cleaning up water sources and fighting policies enabling climate change.

The group wants an explicit methane leakage policy in its field manual on operations. Currently, the manual states “leaks, repairs, replacements, or removal of gas gathering lines, meter housing, risers, etc.” must be reported to immediately by email to the appropriate University Lands field representative, who corresponds with the entity from the site on operations.

According to Environment Texas’ website, its analysis estimates that over a six year period, the amount of methane leaked from University Lands is equivalent to “11.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.” The site claims this equates to the environmental impact of 2.5 million cars.

The group calculated this estimate by taking the percentage of production University Lands makes up, and then applied the national numbers of total emissions from the West Texas area according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency as a percentage to University Lands.

Adler in an email said University Lands makes up about 7 to 9 percent of total emissions from the Permian Basin. She also said “emissions from facilities located on UL acreage would total ~0.3 million metric tons.”

Using these numbers, “~2 million metric tons” were emitted over the six year period from 2011-2017.

“The good news is that emissions are trending down, while production is trending up,” Adler said.

Metzger said although these numbers are an estimate, the group stands by them.

“There’s the study … that shows that EPA’s estimates should be 60 percent higher, the actual emissions, than what EPA had been estimating,” Metzger said. “So our figure we think is very likely quite conservative.”

Carey King is a UT Austin research scientist and assistant director at UT Austin’s Energy Institute, which researches energy solutions and promotes policy change. King said the estimate is not entirely accurate but fits Environment Texas’ agenda.

“My guess is they’re accurate enough for what they’re saying,” King said. “I suppose at minimum, they are saying that there’s certain best practices for mitigating methane emissions from oil and gas activities.”

The group has asked for University Lands and former UT Systems Chancellor William McRaven to implement specific policy to curb methane leakage. In May, following communication between Environment Texas and University Lands, a task force on methane leakage was suggested, but McRaven did not implement it and said the decision should be up to the incoming chancellor.

UT System Chancellor James Miliken was appointed in August, and has not spoken about the task force yet.

“We’ve been working on this issue for like three years now and that was kind of the first real development,” Metzger said. “So I think they’re finally now taking issues seriously, they still have yet to really act to require as a condition of the lease that companies capture this methane.”