Now That West TX Is Awash In Fracking Wastewater, They're Ready To BEGIN Studying If They Can Use It To Grow Crops
IMPERIAL, Texas—There is water in all the wrong places in this corner of West Texas. The Pecos River runs dry through this small town mired in severe drought. But Lake Boehmer, a pool of toxic water flowing from underground, lies just a few miles south. To the north, a well blew out on a ranch late last year and spewed salty water sky high. Early settlers built canals to divert water from the Pecos River here and named the town for the Imperial Valley of California. But today Imperial is surrounded by oilfields and farmland that has gone fallow. Oil and gas companies are injecting vast quantities of wastewater, also known as produced water, into the subsurface of the Permian Basin. These injection wells have been linked to surface deformation, blow-outs and earthquakes.
Eric Selinger’s family used to farm shrimp on their property along the Pecos River outside Imperial. But the aquaculture ponds have long lain empty. He sees a potential solution in produced water and is seeking business partners to treat it for irrigation on his land. Selinger hopes that repurposing produced water can reduce the volume injected underground, and in turn, the risk of blow-outs and earthquakes.
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“I believe produced water in the next five years will be a viable supply alternative in some areas that need it,” said state Sen. Charles Perry of Lubbock during a hearing of the Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs on September 3. “If … for nothing else [in] the agricultural community.” But scientific study of using treated produced water is still in the early stages. Produced water can contain hundreds of constituents that are costly to test for and treat. Many of the constituents do not have toxicity standards approved by federal or state regulators. The cost of treating produced water remains prohibitive. Those challenges will have to be addressed to responsibly use produced water outside 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,” said state Sen. Nathan Johnson during the committee hearing. “Given the volume of activity in Texas, any little mistake is going to be a thousand times what it would be somewhere else.”
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At a laboratory outside Midland, Texas Pacific Water Resources (TPWR) tests water treatment technology and studies treated produced water’s effects on plants. The Railroad Commission opened applications for pilot projects earlier this year to study larger-scale use of produced water in agriculture. TPWR runs one of two active Railroad Commission pilot projects. TPWR research and development manager Adrianne Lopez shows visitors the six-step treatment process that includes reverse osmosis and a patented desalination method. The raw produced water that TPWR receives is on average 130,000 parts per million total dissolved solids (TDS). That’s several times saltier than sea water. The intensive treatment process brings down the TDS to the hundreds.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122024/west-texas-recycled-oilfield-water-drought-solution/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Killing the pregnant women wasn't reducing the population fast enough.
Go texas. 
