This 12 months, the New Mexico Water High quality Management Fee held a listening to in Santa Fe to hunt public enter on regulating wastewater discharge from the oil and gasoline {industry}. It ended up dealing a blow to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s bold proposal to reuse the water for various vitality growth.
Beneath the proposal, which was introduced just a few months earlier on the 2023 United Nations Local weather Change Convention and dubbed the “Strategic Water Provide,” the state would purchase each pure brackish and oilfield-produced water, contract with personal corporations for therapy or cleansing, after which present the cleaned water to so-called inexperienced industries like photo voltaic and wind vitality and electrical car manufacturing. The $500 million funding, Lujan Grisham stated on the U.N. convention, would assist “strengthen our local weather resiliency and shield our treasured freshwater sources.”
However the majority of the general public who attended the listening to or submitted written feedback opposed any discharge of both handled or untreated produced water, with some calling the water poisonous and contaminated. New Mexico Water High quality Management Commissioner Katie Zemlick summarized the considerations of many voters: Given the dearth of dependable information on the chemical compounds discovered within the industrially produced water, “Why would we wish to transfer ahead with functions that would doubtlessly work together with floor or floor water?”
Some environmental and Indigenous activists additionally panned the proposal, with activists calling it a “false resolution” that funnels cash to the oil and gasoline {industry}. And throughout the 2024 legislative session, a invoice to fund the challenge acquired little assist from lawmakers, and died in committee.
All of the whereas, the state hasn’t surrender: The New Mexico Surroundings Division (underneath which the Water High quality Management Fee falls) collected info from the personal and public sectors on therapy and industrial reuse of produced water, a preliminary step earlier than requesting and accepting proposals underneath the plan. And on the listening to they pursued new guidelines for the usage of produced water in pilot tasks.
Mike Hightower, program director of the New Mexico Produced Water Analysis Consortium, a partnership between academia, authorities businesses, nationwide laboratories, the personal sector, and the state, testified that “the information out there on produced water overwhelmingly reveals that it may be handled and used safely.”
Different oil-producing Western states are additionally grappling with easy methods to handle growing volumes of produced water, given intensifying drought and dwindling storage choices.
New Mexico is on the middle of the talk due to the profitable Permian Basin, which extends from West Texas into southeastern New Mexico. The Permian is the nation’s best oilfield, accounting for over 40 p.c of whole U.S. oil manufacturing. It additionally generates probably the most wastewater — greater than 15 million barrels per day in 2022, over 10 instances greater than the next-highest producing basin.
James Kenney, the New Mexico Surroundings Division secretary, emphasised in an interview that the state just isn’t proposing reuse for consuming water or agriculture. However utilizing produced water for hydrogen gas growth or photo voltaic tasks, he stated, “looks as if an effective way to offset freshwater use.”
At the moment, he added, most produced water is injected again underground, and it’s “an actual missed alternative” to not reuse it.
However public well being advocates are involved. Ted Schettler, science director on the Science and Environmental Well being Community, a nonprofit group, stated that “produced water is extremely poisonous.” Along with recognized carcinogens like formaldehyde, he stated, produced water presents “reproductive hazards, developmental hazards, neurotoxic hazards” to people.
The Permian wastewater surge is the results of a growth in fracking — an extractive approach through which fluid is pumped into wells at excessive strain to interrupt open tight rock formations and launch oil and gasoline deposits. As of 2022, round 95 p.c of the Permian’s oil and gasoline wells had been horizontal wells, which lengthen horizontally under the floor, and usually fracked, up from round 20 p.c in 2011. Together with hydrocarbons, massive portions of water are delivered to the floor with a bunch of naturally occurring substances, like salts, metals, and oil and grease, in addition to chemical compounds added by gas corporations.
The area’s monumental quantity of wastewater and “excessive present and projected ranges of water shortage makes the Permian a key location” of regulation and analysis, in keeping with a 2023 report from the Floor Water Safety Council, a nonprofit composed of state groundwater regulatory businesses.
For now, regulation is left to Western states underneath the federal Clear Water Act, which authorizes useful reuse of water “of excellent sufficient high quality” in states west of the 98th meridian, which roughly demarcates the arid West.
Some states have already authorized some reuse of produced water exterior oilfields, although not for inexperienced vitality and with out the numerous funding proposed by New Mexico. In California, produced water is used for irrigation within the Central Valley; in Wyoming, it’s used for livestock watering and irrigation; and in Pennsylvania, it has been authorized for discharge into the Susquehanna River.
In Texas, in the meantime, pilot tasks are being performed with cotton irrigation, and the state has permitted discharge to streams and rivers if it meets water high quality requirements. Texas and Colorado have additionally created produced water consortiums to review therapy and reuse exterior oilfields.
Some scientists are calling for extra federal oversight of such tasks. “It’s virtually assured that if the actual state doesn’t require far more rigorous testing, there are going to be hazardous chemical compounds which can be going to be unfold on the land, or make their approach into waterways,” stated Schettler.
“I believe it’s fairly clear that the present regulatory panorama just isn’t satisfactory to actually shield public well being or the atmosphere due to all these unknowns,” he added.
Taimur Shaikh, a senior coverage adviser for the Environmental Safety Company within the New Mexico area, and an adviser to the state’s produced water analysis consortium, emphasised that the EPA’s involvement in state consortiums engaged on rules is minimal: “We’re attempting to be engaged in an advisory capability,” he informed Undark. “However we’re positively not attempting to steer any of them.”
In the meantime, produced water is “a really worthwhile water useful resource,” stated Pei Xu, affiliate director for analysis and know-how on the New Mexico Produced Water Analysis Consortium. However, she added, it’s mandatory to make sure that the handled water “won’t trigger any dangers to human beings and to the atmosphere.”
Permian produced water has been discovered to comprise the naturally occurring radioactive metals radium and uranium; different metals like lithium and iron; ammonia; and unstable natural compounds together with benzene and toluene. Oil and gasoline corporations additionally add chemical compounds to their drilling fluids, together with acids to dissolve minerals, biocides to kill micro organism that trigger corrosion, surfactants to make the fluid thicker, and polymers to reduce friction throughout drilling operations.
Hightower, the consortium’s program director, stated the outcomes of their therapy tasks have discovered “that there isn’t any toxicity of the handled produced waters.”
But Shaikh of the EPA stated that estimating the danger of publicity is difficult, as a result of the chemical make-up relies on the geologic formation the water is drawn from. It’s a “complicated combination” composed of many alternative supplies, he stated, and “some have good toxicological information and a few don’t.”
Based on one literature evaluation encompassing 129 research, out of almost 1,200 chemical compounds present in U.S. produced water, solely 14 p.c had “present toxicity values” wanted for danger evaluation. As well as, a number of the chemical compounds are thought of proprietary, and aren’t disclosed by oil and gasoline corporations.
“Should you’re not cleansing up the water with these chemical compounds in thoughts, and also you’re placing these unknown chemical compounds onto the panorama within the water,” Schettler stated, “it’s very tough to conclude that you realize that it’s protected.”
Given produced water’s myriad parts, it takes quite a few processes to take away them. First, oil and grease have to be separated and filtered. Then focused chemical compounds are eliminated with adsorbents — solids that contaminants adhere to, together with sawdust and activated carbon. Different substances are eliminated with ultraviolet disinfection or oxidation. Salts are eliminated by means of processes like reverse osmosis or thermal distillation. Lastly, if the water is for use for groundwater recharge to aquifers or potable use, it could additionally want disinfection or pH adjustment.
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, often known as “endlessly chemical compounds,” have additionally been present in Permian produced water, together with samples examined by Xu. She speculates it was a results of contamination, however in keeping with a 2023 Physicians for Social Accountability report, Permian oil and gasoline operators have injected wells with these chemical compounds, that are notoriously tough to take away.
“I believe it’d be very arduous to seek out one therapy that really addresses all of the parts that you simply would possibly discover inside produced water,” Shaikh stated.
One other security difficulty, Xu stated, is that publicity to the mixed chemical compounds “could have a synergistic impact” that isn’t revealed with evaluation of particular person chemical compounds. Because of this, Xu and her colleagues have begun toxicity research to have a look at the results of what she calls “the entire effluent” on crops and animals. Hightower stated he hoped this toxicity testing “will turn into the usual for all of the states to make use of.”
In the mean time, although, Schettler stated therapy applied sciences “are very vitality intensive, and they also’re going to be costly.” And Seth Shonkoff, an environmental well being scientist and govt director of California-based analysis institute PSE Wholesome Vitality, stated, “There’s not off-the-shelf, reasonably priced methods to observe” all of the chemical compounds in produced water.
However Hightower stated that with disposal prices rising because of growing volumes of water and stricter rules, “We’re at a degree the place that is going to be value efficient for us.” In a 2023 presentation, the associated fee to deal with Permian produced water was $0.75 to $1.20 per barrel, whereas disposal prices are on monitor to come back near $1.20 per barrel subsequent 12 months, in keeping with Hightower.
The therapy course of produces one other problem: “You’ll have cleaned up the water to a degree that you simply’re proud of,” Schettler stated, “however you’ve gotten this hazardous waste left to do away with.” That may very well be reinjected into disposal wells, the present protocol for produced water. But when it exceeds rules for radioactivity, it could be thought of hazardous and require costlier disposal.
Some proponents, in the meantime, say the lithium-rich waste may show worthwhile. “We are able to use it as a supply for mineral restoration,” Xu stated, and the waste additionally comprises ammonia, magnesium, and calcium, all utilized in agriculture and manufacturing.
Kenney, the Surroundings Division secretary, famous that water itself is a worthwhile commodity, and produced water is only a “commodity in ready.”
In the meantime, he added, evolving rules in different states may create competitors for produced water. If Texas strikes to permit handled produced water reuse in agriculture or different functions, Kenney stated, “New Mexico’s unusable produced water will probably be bought, I predict, to Texas corporations.”
Already, an estimated one-third of the state’s produced water is transported to Texas by way of vehicles or pipelines for disposal due to New Mexico’s stricter allowing necessities, in keeping with the Floor Water Safety Council. After New Mexico (together with Texas and Oklahoma) skilled a rise in earthquakes because of the injection of produced water underground, the state enacted stricter disposal rules.
But environmental advocates are involved concerning the danger of produced water transport. Based on state information of spills reported by operators, there have been 938 incidents of produced water spills in 2023, with reported quantities misplaced in a single spill reaching 4,200 barrels, or roughly 176,400 gallons.
New Mexico’s second-largest petroleum-producing area, the San Juan basin, produces far much less oil, however comprises important cultural sources. The basin overlaps with elements of the Navajo Nation and off-reservation Navajo belief lands. And different Indigenous teams have ancestral roots within the area, which incorporates Chaco Tradition Nationwide Historic Park, a middle of ancestral Pueblo websites.
Julia Bernal, an enrolled member of Sandia Pueblo and govt director of the Pueblo Motion Alliance, stated the larger Chaco space is “essential to our cultural lifeways and existence.”
The area is already impacted by oil and gasoline manufacturing, Bernal stated, and produced water is being trucked to disposal websites within the space. If a brand new marketplace for produced water emerges, she stated, “it’s going to extend the danger of extra produced water spills.”
Mario Atencio, a Navajo organizer, stated: “The impacts to the groundwater are simply too harmful to consider. The entire space has all these springs. Within the desert, these are extremely sacred cultural sources to Indigenous individuals, particularly Navajo individuals.”
Governor Lujan Grisham has vowed to return to the legislature in 2025 to hunt funding for the Strategic Water Provide, and the Water High quality Management Fee will deliberate on proposed guidelines for produced water discharge later this 12 months.
But consortium scientist Xu stated she and her colleagues “nonetheless have loads of ongoing analysis” and want extra time and funding earlier than they decide that handled produced water is protected for reuse.
For some critics, the governor’s proposal is a distraction from different conservation efforts: Bernal stated it’s disingenuous for the state to assert its plan advances water conservation, when there have been “many, a few years of advocacy” by native teams for “water resiliency tasks that might actually be about conserving water, fixing growing old infrastructure,” and addressing tribal wants.
Shonkoff, the environmental well being scientist, frames the talk by way of balancing danger: “One danger is having the ability to be resilient within the face of drought,” he stated, whereas one other is “utilizing rising sources of water that will current dangers to people and the atmosphere.”
And public well being advocates like Schettler say the competing calls for on finite water sources from the agricultural sector, rising cities, and the oil and gasoline {industry}, amplified by local weather change, are solely going to worsen.
“There’s an incredible want to determine what to do,” he stated.