Recycled oilfield water may help drought-stricken West Texas

Join The Temporary, The Texas Tribune’s every day publication that retains readers up to the mark on probably the most important Texas information.

---

This story is printed in partnership with Inside Local weather Information, a nonprofit, unbiased information group that covers local weather, power and the setting. Join the ICN publication right here.

IMPERIAL — There may be water in all of the fallacious locations on this nook of West Texas.

The Pecos River runs dry by way of this small city mired in extreme drought. However Lake Boehmer, a pool of poisonous water flowing from underground, lies just some miles south. To the north, a nicely blew out on a ranch late final 12 months and spewed salty water sky excessive.

Early settlers constructed canals to divert water from the Pecos River right here and named the city for the Imperial Valley of California. However in the present day Imperial is surrounded by oilfields and farmland that has gone fallow. Oil and fuel firms are injecting huge portions of wastewater, also called produced water, into the subsurface of the Permian Basin. These injection wells have been linked to floor deformation, blowouts and earthquakes.

Eric Selinger’s household used to farm shrimp on their property alongside the Pecos River exterior Imperial. However the aquaculture ponds have lengthy laid empty. He sees a possible resolution in produced water and is looking for enterprise companions to deal with it for irrigation on his land. Selinger hopes that repurposing produced water can scale back the amount injected underground, and in flip, the chance of blowouts and earthquakes.

“I’ve got the vision and I’ve got the piece of land,” he mentioned on a heat October afternoon.

Selinger isn’t the one one betting that produced water can be utilized exterior the oilfield. The Railroad Fee of Texas, which regulates oil and fuel waste, has two pilot tasks to check the idea. The Texas Produced Water Consortium, based mostly at Texas Tech College, is operating its personal set of therapy pilots. The Texas Legislature is predicted to overview the difficulty subsequent 12 months.

“I believe produced water in the next five years will be a viable supply alternative in some areas that need it,” mentioned state Sen. Charles Perry of Lubbock throughout a listening to of the Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Sept. 3. “If … for nothing else [in] the agricultural community.”

However scientific research of utilizing handled produced water remains to be within the early levels. Produced water can comprise a whole bunch of constituents which might be pricey to check for and deal with. Most of the constituents don’t have toxicity requirements authorised by federal or state regulators. The price of treating produced water stays prohibitive. These challenges must be addressed to responsibly use produced water exterior the oilfields.

“I just need everybody to be able to assure the public that we know what it is that we’re filtering out and we know what it is that we’re releasing,” mentioned state Sen. Nathan Johnson through the committee listening to. “Given the volume of activity in Texas, any little mistake is going to be a thousand times what it would be somewhere else.”

Assembly a thirst for water

Texas is presently the highest oil-producing state within the nation. Copious produced water involves the floor through the drilling course of. Within the Delaware Basin of the Permian Basin, almost 5 barrels of water are produced for each one barrel of oil. This wastewater can comprise each fluids injected under the floor for fracking and water that was dislodged from underground formations. Produced water within the Permian Basin is so saline it might depart the land barren for years when spilled. The wastewater may comprise radium 226 and 228 and risky natural compounds together with benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.

Texas doesn’t require firms to report their volumes of produced water. However current evaluation discovered that unconventional, or fracked, wells within the Permian Basin produce 12 million barrels of water a day. That’s equal to 504 million gallons, or sufficient water to fill greater than 700 Olympic swimming swimming pools. The full may enhance to fifteen million barrels per day by 2042.

Presently, produced water is both disposed of in injection wells or reused throughout the oil and fuel trade to frack different wells. However injection has been linked to earthquakes within the Permian Basin, main the Railroad Fee to restrict deep injection wells. With disposal capability strained, the trade is raring to search out options.

“The fact of the matter is that industry needs more disposal options,” Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick testified through the current Senate committee listening to.

The Texas Legislature created the Texas Produced Water Consortium in 2021 to handle these points. In 2023 the Legislature appropriated $5 million to the consortium and charged it with establishing pilot tasks on water therapy applied sciences and water high quality. The consortium accomplished its second report to the Legislature this fall.

Texas is dealing with a drier future with a rising inhabitants that can want extra water. The Texas Water Improvement Board tasks that, if water provides are usually not expanded, the state may face extreme water shortages throughout an excessive drought. In response, the Legislature created a brand new $1 billion fund in 2023 to develop water assets. Produced water is one of many water sources being thought of for the fund.

Environmental teams together with the Sierra Membership Lone Star Chapter have issues about utilizing produced water exterior the oilfields. And analysis exhibits there are nonetheless unknowns that additional complicate efforts to deal with produced water. A 2020 journal article discovered that of 1,198 chemical compounds recognized in produced water, there have been toxicity values for less than 167. In different phrases, there isn’t a toxicity knowledge to finish a danger evaluation for 86% of the chemical compounds in produced water.

In written feedback to the Texas Senate, Sierra Membership legislative and conservation director Cyrus Reed expressed concern about discharging handled produced water as a result of “many of the constituents found in produced water are not well understood and water quality standards for many of these constituents have not been established.”

Reed mentioned that progress is being made however there are nonetheless “regulatory gaps” within the requirements to deal with and use produced water. He mentioned that “the devil’s in the details” in relation to permitted handled produced water to be used in agriculture.

“Given that we’re still going through these pilot projects at the consortium and at the Railroad Commission, taking our time is a good thing,” Reed mentioned.

Pilot tasks deal with produced water

At a laboratory exterior Midland, Texas Pacific Water Sources (TPWR) exams water therapy expertise and research handled produced water’s results on vegetation.

The Railroad Fee opened purposes for pilot tasks earlier this 12 months to review larger-scale use of produced water in agriculture. TPWR runs certainly one of two energetic Railroad Fee pilot tasks.

TPWR analysis and improvement supervisor Adrianne Lopez exhibits guests the six-step therapy course of that features reverse osmosis and a patented desalination technique. The uncooked produced water that TPWR receives is on common 130,000 elements per million complete dissolved solids. That’s a number of occasions saltier than sea water. The intensive therapy course of brings down the full dissolved solids to the a whole bunch.

“The biggest challenge is produced water is so variable,” Lopez mentioned on the lab in October.

Produced water varies based mostly on the underground formation it comes from and the fluids injected underground. For that motive Lopez seeks out the “rawest” supply water, to see if the therapy course of works for various inputs.

TPWR has additionally utilized to the Texas Fee on Environmental High quality for a allow to discharge handled produced water right into a tributary of the Pecos River. The appliance remains to be underneath overview.

TPWR has labored with scientists at New Mexico State College to check the handled produced water for over 400 totally different contaminants. This testing goes past what the TCEQ presently regulates. The workforce has additionally used Entire Effluent Toxicity testing and non-target evaluation to determine unknown constituents.

“We did this because we wanted to have a lot of data to share with the regulatory agencies to prove that this is a safe process, that we’re capable of treating (the water) down to a standard that is not harmful,” Lopez mentioned.

For the pilot challenge, TPWR used handled produced water to develop alfalfa and native vegetation in a greenhouse and outdoor. Each the outside alfalfa and the greenhouse vegetation might be examined at NMSU for any bioaccumulation of constituents. Lopez explains that even when a contaminant isn’t detectable in laboratory exams it may accumulate inside a plant or animal.

Lopez plans to publish the findings in peer-reviewed papers with NMSU and Texas Tech researchers. The outcomes may also be submitted to the Railroad Fee. TPWR has made a degree to share their expertise extensively and solicit suggestions.

“Typically, oil and gas is not very open about things like this,” Lopez mentioned. “However, we know that this project is going to affect people within the industry and people outside of the industry.”

The one different energetic Railroad Fee pilot challenge is with Deep Blue Working. The corporate didn’t reply to a request for remark. In keeping with data obtained from the Railroad Fee, Deep Blue is permitted to make use of handled produced water to irrigate 4 5,000 sq. foot plots in Midland County. Cotton, bermuda grass, alfalfa and winter wheat might be grown on the plots utilizing a sprinkler irrigation system. A most quantity of 27,300 gallons of handled produced water could also be utilized every day throughout the 4 plots.

The Railroad Fee is anticipating knowledge from the pilot tasks in 2025, in line with spokesperson Patty Ramon.

“The results will be part of our ongoing work to analyze drafting forward-thinking safety regulations that operators could follow,” Ramon mentioned.

Ramon mentioned members of the general public can submit public data requests to acquire the outcomes of the pilot research.

Handled produced water gained’t be low-cost 

Texas Tech environmental engineering professor Shane Walker was just lately named director of the Texas Produced Water Consortium. The group brings collectively academia, trade and nonprofits to research the feasibility of treating produced water to wash and protected requirements.

“From an engineering perspective, it’s definitely possible,” Walker mentioned. “The question is, what are the economic costs associated with that treatment?”

Irrigation presently makes use of probably the most water within the Permian Basin, accounting for about three-quarters of consumption. The associated fee to pump groundwater for irrigation is barely cents per barrel. That may put handled produced water, which should undergo an energy-intensive desalination course of, at a price drawback. One other impediment is that the West Texas counties anticipated to have irrigation water shortages largely don’t overlap with oil-producing counties which have extra produced water.

For now farmers are unlikely to purchase handled produced water after they have less expensive groundwater out there. However Walker notes that if underground disposal capability is maxed out, new configurations may emerge.

“Theoretically, the industry could have an arrangement to donate the water, or give the water for agricultural use,” he mentioned.

Desalination requires vital power use, a essential driver of the price of treating produced water. The consortium report notes that produced water administration is already a $4 billion enterprise within the Permian Basin.

The consortium has 5 pilot tasks with oil and fuel firms within the Permian Basin. These firms ship samples of uncooked and handled produced water to an authorized laboratory for constituent evaluation and complete effluent toxicity testing. The consortium is processing and analyzing the testing knowledge for a future white paper.

Walker mentioned the outcomes to date present the businesses are producing “excellent water quality.”

The pilot knowledge is anonymized to guard the mental property of firms creating therapy applied sciences. Walker mentioned taking part firms have been protecting of their proprietary processes, however are steadily sharing extra data.

“The scaling of these technologies, up to the scale of the problem of produced water, is probably still years out,” he mentioned.

The current report mentions a number of different sectors that would use handled produced water. The authors recommend exploring different crops together with guayule, a supply of latex rubber, that could possibly be irrigated with handled produced water. Texas Tech will conduct produced water research on guayule latex at its greenhouse and backyard advanced. The authors additionally level to rangeland restoration as a doable use for the water.

Industrial makes use of for the water are being thought of, together with at carbon seize vegetation. The report notes curiosity in recovering essential minerals from produced water.

The consortium can also be researching these constituents in produced water. Walker mentioned that the consortium bought devices to conduct high-resolution liquid and fuel chromatography mass spectrometry. He in contrast these devices to a telescope that may look into the “dark spots in the universe.”

Walker mentioned between mass spectrometry and WET testing they’ll achieve a extra full understanding of what’s in produced water.

“We’re talking about significant potential volumes of water,” he mentioned. “We’re talking about the opportunity to help in a substantial way, especially for West Texas.”

“The industry is finally ready”

Eric Selinger first envisioned utilizing handled produced water on his land in 2014. However regulators didn’t but have a framework to allow tasks. A decade later, the issues with injection wells have mounted and corporations are racing to search out options.

“Now I see the industry is finally ready to do something like this,” Selinger mentioned.

His household purchased the 120-acre property in Imperial, which had already operated as a shrimp farm, within the early Nineties. The saline groundwater in Pecos County has attracted aquaculture to the realm. However after shedding a harvest, Selinger determined that shrimp farming wasn’t for him. He wish to develop greens and make recent meals out there within the space.

Irrigation canals line the land. However there hasn’t been sufficient water within the Pecos River for irrigation in years. Selinger sees handled produced water because the logical subsequent step.

His proposal — which he calls the Imperial Oasis Challenge — envisions utilizing the property and the present ponds, canals and greenhouse as a laboratory for produced water helpful use. He proposes recycling produced water on-site and utilizing it for agriculture or re-sale. Selinger thinks finally the water could possibly be handled for discharge into the Pecos River, however for now agricultural use is a extra possible first step.

Selinger worries that the following nicely blowout could possibly be on his property. At his residence in Midland he has felt the earthquakes rocking the Permian. Selinger needs to be a part of the answer for produced water.

“This is the largest bottleneck I’ve ever seen for the industry personally,” Selinger mentioned. “You can’t continue to sweep it under the rug.”

Texas regulators and oil and fuel firms agree that produced water can’t be injected underground ceaselessly. Now the race is on to search out someplace else to make use of it safely and affordably, if that’s doable.

Disclosure: Texas Tech College has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no function within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full listing of them right here.