The fracking boom that resuscitated the Texas oil fields has also beaten up the infrastructure in the Permian Basin, the state’s biggest oil and gas drilling region.
More heavy trucks drove through small towns, tearing up roads. Companies built temporary workforce housing, called man camps, which local officials said dramatically increased the population, requiring more public services like garbage pick-up, hospital beds and first responders.
Local leaders say the oil boom has caused strains that their city and county budgets can’t keep up with.
Two West Texas lawmakers want to divert 10% of the roughly $8 billion that oil and gas companies p