The oil and gas industry has a water problem. EPA wants to help.

E&E News

4 hours ago

Oil and gas companies are running out of options for disposing of polluted water they generate every day, a problem for the Trump administration's 'energy dominance' agenda.
EPA is offering the industry a hand by promoting reuse of that wastewater. The effort worries environmentalists, but it could draw crucial political allies in oil-producing states.
The agency plans to update rules for what can be done with water that emerges from the ground during oil and gas extraction. The goal is to allow the chemical-laden, super-salty brine to be substantially cleaned and reused for power generation, water-guzzling data centers and irrigating rangeland.
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Reusing the water could address a major industry challenge and help ease crippling drought in parts of Texas and New Mexico, two of the nation's most prolific oil-producing states. A growing body of research suggests that the water — which is three or more times saltier than seawater — can now be safely treated for certain applications, from industrial cooling to growing alfalfa and other non-food crops, proponents say.
'The short answer is New Mexico is supportive,' said James Kenney, secretary of the state's Environment Department. 'We want to be EPA's partner and thought leader on this.'
But while treatment technologies for produced water have progressed, critics say they remain expensive and energy intensive. Environmentalists and some local officials also worry that EPA will not require testing for all potential pollutants lurking in the water, creating contamination risks.
'EPA [has been] very upfront by saying that there's a lack of data on the technology and its ability to effectively and reliably treat this fluid,' said Dan Mueller, a Texas-based water resources engineer who has worked with the Environmental Defense Fund. 'That is a struggle, and I continue to make that advocacy point.'
Drilling in the Permian Basin, the oil field that straddles Texas and New Mexico, can generate three or more times as much wastewater as oil. During hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, water deep underground mixes with naturally occurring salt, radioactive materials, heavy metals and, potentially, chemicals used to fracture shale.
For years, companies have reinjected the dirty brine underground in designated locations. But that can provoke earthquakes and risks polluting water supplies. With state regulators now tightening rules around deep well injection, companies are increasingly trying to recycle, treat and reuse the water.
The push comes as reservoirs in the Rio Grande Basin are around a quarter percent full, and New Mexico's governor declared a drought emergency last month. If water supplies continue to dwindle, it could stifle clean energy and new industries such as data centers, experts say.
'I'm honestly really excited about the opportunity that this represents, because it's a significant volume of water, and the economics are now competitive with the cost of disposal by deep well injection,' said Shane Walker, director of the Texas Produced Water Consortium at Texas Tech University.
Still, Mueller and other skeptics want to see the oil industry do more to reduce its own water footprint before companies can treat and sell their wastewater for other uses. Others worry that the oil-friendly Trump administration and states won't enact proper guardrails to ensure treated water is safe to reuse.
'While I do think there are some beneficial reuses of these waters, our concern is they will be loosely regulated and appropriate oversight will not occur,' said Dana Ames, an environmental crimes investigator in Johnson County, Texas.
Treatment options
The oil sector's wastewater problem has spawned an industry of its own specializing in disposing of and trying to treat the brine.
An oil-and-water mixture is pooled at a wastewater disposal site serving the oil and gas industry outside Eunice, New Mexico, on March 8, 2016. | New Mexico State Land Office via AP
One such company is Aquafortus, which has a produced water treatment project in Colorado City, Texas, said Earl Jones, chair of the board for the company. EPA officials toured the site last month, Jones said.
The biggest challenge with produced water is its extremely high salt content, but other materials are largely 'not a big deal' to remove, he said.
'This is a pilot facility that's intended to demonstrate the technology, which it does, both in terms of the effectiveness of desalination — the clean water that comes out the backend — and the economics,' Jones said.
Although it's not currently done on a large scale, treating 'produced water' at drilling sites is becoming cost competitive with other disposal options, said Mike Hightower, the former program director of the New Mexico Produced Water Consortium. That's because state regulators have cracked down on where the brine can be injected underground to quell the risk of earthquakes.
'They have to truck it out of the basins and into other areas,' Hightower said. 'Once you start trucking water, it gets to be very expensive.'
As EPA moves to 'standardize' treatment and reuse of produced water, the practice could soon become common, he predicted. Texas and New Mexico have each invested millions of dollars into research on the topic.
'It's a big opportunity, and I think people need to acknowledge that EPA is trying to do the right thing,' Hightower said.
But proponents of reusing produced water in New Mexico encountered a major setback last month.
The state's Water Quality Control Commission adopted a rule prohibiting discharge of produced water to groundwater and surface waters, effectively shutting the door on widespread reuse for the next five years. The decision was a win for environmental groups, who say it's still unclear if regulators can ensure that treated produced water is safe to apply on land or in surface waters.
One problem is the lack of comprehensive data on specific chemicals that oil and gas companies inject underground, said Colin Cox, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. While Colorado enacted a law in 2022 requiring companies to disclose fracking chemicals, that isn't mandated nationwide, Cox said.
'We don't know how to test for all the contaminants we are aware of, we don't know how to treat for all the contaminants potentially in there, and there haven't been demonstrations of how this would work,' he said. 'I'm proud of the Water Quality Control Commission in New Mexico doing the right thing and protecting us.'
PFAS concerns
In Texas, meanwhile, the Commission on Environmental Quality is evaluating four permit proposals to discharge treated produced water into creeks and reservoirs.
A scarecrow floats on the surface of a tailings pond to keep birds from landing in the toxic wastewater from oil production near Fort McMurray, Canada, on Sep. 2, 2023. | Victor R. Caivano/AP
The Legislature also enacted a law last month that could thrust reuse of produced water into the mainstream — while prompting fresh concerns about the safety of the material.
The law shields oil and gas companies from lawsuits should contamination or other issues occur after produced water is sold, treated and reused. Supporters of the policy say it provides companies with the legal certainty they need to invest in treatment technologies.
'It's about offering regulatory certainty to the industry that's the backbone of this state,' Drew Darby, a Republican who chairs the Energy Resources Committee in the Texas House of Representatives, said during a hearing earlier this year.
But the legal shield set off alarm bells for Ames, the Johnson County official. Located 20 miles south of Fort Worth, the county declared a state of emergency in February due to severe contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The toxic, human-made forever chemicals were allegedly spread via sewage sludge fertilizer, spurring a cattle die-off and possibly sickening farmers, Ames said.
Although it's not clear how much PFAS is used in fracking, the chemicals have been found in some produced water. With state and federal regulators taking a hands-off approach to PFAS in sewage sludge, Ames worries that testing for the chemicals — which include thousands of unique compounds — will not be mandated for produced water discharges.
'We are extremely concerned the EPA will not require PFAS testing be conducted before the waters are released for their reuse purpose,' Ames said. 'If they refuse to regulate PFAS in biosolids, what do you think the likelihood is they're going to do that in fracking water or produced water?'
EPA declined requests for an interview on how it plans to advance treatment of produced water and regulate it.
The agency's expert engineer on produced water, Jesse Pritts, also retired June 13, according to an automatic reply from his EPA email address. He's one of many career staffers heading for the exit amid agency restructuring and the looming threat of firings under President Donald Trump.
By updating federal wastewater standards for produced water, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin plans to advance his top two priorities, protecting the environment and 'promoting energy dominance,' an agency spokesperson said.
'Current effluent regulations limit where and how wastewater from this industry, also known as produced water, can be discharged,' the spokesperson said. 'These regulations do not reflect advancement in treatment technology that have occurred.'
In an April presentation to nonprofits, EPA officials indicated they were gathering feedback on what types of pollutants should be monitored and regulated in an upcoming rule.
'Are there concerns you have about pollutants in produced water generally, or in arid West, specifically? Are there specific pollutants that you would like to see limits for in an effluent guidelines revision?' one slide stated, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by POLITICO's E&E News.
The presentation said the timing of a potential ruling was still uncertain.
Walker, of the Texas Produced Water Consortium, said the agency seems to be trying to move quickly. As for safety concerns, he stressed that there are technologies to treat for and remove all potential contaminants in produced water, including heavy metals, ammonia and chemical compounds.
Nonetheless, he noted that treatment itself — especially to remove all the salt — is energy-intensive, a potential barrier to widespread deployment.
'[The energy] is not trivial, and in West Texas, the grid is not really set up to handle that level of energy demand,' Walker said. 'So we've actually received some funding to support research on that energy-water nexus.'
For Mueller, the water resources engineer and consultant, there's another option for better managing produced water that must be pursued: recycling. The term refers to reusing produced water to frack for more oil and gas, which does not require expensive or energy-intensive treatment and reduces demands on freshwater.
The practice is increasingly being employed by the oil industry. Still, non-industry data is limited on exactly how widely it is being done, Mueller said.
'The No. 1 step is to maximize recycled water first, and then see what's left for these other uses that could be used for this produced water,' he said.
This story originally appeared in Greenwire.