Well Water and the Uranium Mining Fight in Goliad County, Texas

A proposed mine, a specific location, and a specific permit

Uranium Energy Corp. has proposed an in-situ leach uranium mine on a 994.9-acre permit area located approximately 13.5 miles north of the city of Goliad, at 14689 N. US Highway 183 in Goliad County. The company's operations there run under Underground Injection Control (UIC) Permit No. UR03075 and related wastewater-disposal-well permits (WDW423 and WDW424) issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In-situ leach mining works by injecting a chemical solution directly into the uranium-bearing aquifer to dissolve and recover the uranium, then extracting the resulting solution back to the surface -- a process whose entire premise depends on containing that chemical solution within the target zone and successfully restoring the aquifer's water quality afterward. That containment and restoration question is exactly what's been contested for nearly 20 years.

This is not a hypothetical local concern. Goliad County's own Commissioners Court passed a resolution as far back as October 9, 2006 stating the county's "firm and absolute opposition to in-situ uranium mining in Goliad County," and that opposition traces to reports of slimy orange sediment showing up in area water wells the following year. The Goliad County Groundwater Conservation District -- the same district that handles ordinary well registration and Out of District Transport Permits described on the county hub -- has spent roughly 15 years fighting the company's permits through Texas's administrative courts.

A 2025 court ruling that reversed TCEQ, and a 2026 hearing still to come

On two prior occasions, the Goliad County Groundwater Conservation District participated in lengthy State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) proceedings and won findings supporting its concerns about the safety of the company's permits -- only for TCEQ's political appointees (its three-member Commission) to reject those administrative judges' recommendations and issue the permits anyway. Following TCEQ's September 6, 2024 final order granting renewal and amendment of Permit Nos. WDW423 and WDW424, the district sued TCEQ in November 2024 in Travis County District Court seeking to reverse that approval. In 2025, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of the 200th Judicial District ruled in the district's favor, finding TCEQ's decision arbitrary and capricious and holding that it failed to meet the state's statutory groundwater-protection requirements. The court's judgment sent the matter back to TCEQ for further proceedings rather than deciding the permits' fate outright, and a SOAH preliminary hearing on a separate but related permit renewal and amendment application (for UIC Permit UR03075) was scheduled for February 5, 2026 -- meaning this dispute remains genuinely open, not resolved, as of this writing.

Separately, the Texas Railroad Commission has cited Uranium Energy Corp. for failing to plug most of its hundreds of exploratory boreholes in the area and for leaving radioactive tailings in small heaps on top of the ground -- a compliance issue distinct from the water-permit litigation but relevant to the same underlying site.

What to check before buying well-water-dependent land near the site

1. Get the exact location of the 994.9-acre permit area (near 14689 N. US Highway 183, roughly 13.5 miles north of the city of Goliad) and check a specific parcel's distance and hydrological relationship to it -- proximity on a map isn't the same as being in the same groundwater flow path.
2. Ask the Goliad County Groundwater Conservation District directly for its own water-quality monitoring data for the area, rather than relying on a seller's general assurance about well water quality.
3. Check TCEQ's public docket for the current status of both the WDW423/WDW424 remand proceedings and the UR03075 permit renewal/amendment application (SOAH hearing scheduled February 5, 2026) before assuming the matter is settled in either direction.
4. If a specific well near the site has ever tested for uranium or related contaminants, ask for that test history directly -- water-quality changes were the original 2007 red flag that led to the county's opposition, and a similar check is a reasonable diligence step today.