Produced Water Reuse: Is More Oversight Needed?

Critics of the oil and gas industry are pushing for more oversight of produced water reuse, an increasingly popular practice touted by the industry for its economic and environmental benefits.

Concerns from environmentalists are growing as "companies increasingly skip off-site treatment and instead reuse their own liquids by diluting them or treating them on-site," the Daily Item reported. These critics want regulators to keep a closer eye on what companies are doing by collecting more data.

In Pennsylvania, the biggest fears about produced water reuse "stem from how the state relies on drilling companies to self-report their activities. Drillers submit data that is posted online, but verifying those records is difficult," the report said.

"Also, companies are not required to follow the same rigorous documentation practices used for other chemicals, since waste from drilling has long been exempted from federal hazardous waste rules," the article continued.

Mark Szybist, a lawyer for the watchdog group PennFuture, explained his group's concerns about state-level oversight.

“There’s no good way to confirm that drillers have in fact recycled what they say they’ve recycled because Pennsylvania has no cradle-to-grave wastewater tracking system,” he said, per the report. “You could argue that this exemption doesn’t make sense. But it’s not the only exemption given to the oil and gas industry that doesn’t make sense.”

According to Matthew Mantell, who prepared a presentation for the EPA on produced water reuse while serving as an environmental engineer at Chesapeake Energy, this practice has numerous benefits.

The oil and gas industry "is reducing the volume of freshwater used in operations [and] reducing the need to compete with other freshwater users," his presentation said, noting that the environmental and economic benefits of the practice may directly correlate.

"The volume of water 'removed' from the hydrologic cycle during fracturing or deep well disposal is more than offset during the combustion of fuel," the presentation said.

But even as critics call for more oversight of produced water reuse, some states are loosening the rules to make these processes more feasible for the energy industry.

For instance, state regulators in New Mexico are weighing a new rule that would make it permissible to reuse drilling wastewater.

The aim is to reduce the amount of freshwater that the drilling industry requires, according to the Associated Press. The New Mexico Environment Department and the Oil Conservation Commission (OCC) are working on the rule, the report said.

For more produced water news, check out Water Online's Produced Water Solution Center.