Wastewater is leaking from Texas oil wells

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that the oil industry’s wastewater is becoming a bigger headache for Texas operators and regulators. Here’s what to know about where it comes from, chemicals it contains, and why it’s becoming a more pressing concern. What dangers does it pose? All this water that comes up as a byproduct of oil and gas production, referred to in the industry as “produced” water, has to go somewhere. Most of it goes back underground, injected into thousands of disposal wells that carry it into geologic formations intended to contain it. But the practice of injecting this wastewater deep underground appears to be the cause of a concerning new trend in West Texas: earthquakes that are reaching near-record intensities for the region.

Mounting pressure tied to the practice of wastewater injection also appears to be causing blowouts, which could contaminate protected groundwater aquifers. Researchers and regulators are working to understand the root causes of the problem. What’s in it? Typically, the wastewater that flows up along with oil and gas in the Permian Basin’s oil wells is very salty — as much as nine times saltier than the ocean. The briny water often contains elevated levels of the carcinogen benzene, trace amounts of oil, heavy metals, naturally occurring radioactive materials, and even critical minerals like lithium. Why is the issue so challenging? The industry must engineer a new technology capable of cleaning its super-salty wastewater in order to stop the practice of injecting it underground. The sticking point so far is the high costs associated with desalination. Meantime, oil production continues to grow in the Permian, and wastewater with it. As many as eight barrels of tainted water can come up with a single barrel of Permian crude. How much water are we talking about? A lot. The Permian is one of the most productive oil regions in the world, but it actually yields far more water than oil. That’s because the fracking process frees up vast amounts of water trapped for thousands of years alongside oil and natural gas in shale rock.