Sign up for The BriefOil and gas extraction in the Permian Basin of arid West Texas is expected to produce some 588 million gallons of wastewater per day for the next 38 years, according to findings of a state-commissioned study group — three times as much as the oil it produces.
But making use of that so-called “produced water” still remains well beyond the current reach of state authorities, he said.the Produced Water Consortium in February 2021, following similar efforts in other oil-producing states to study how produced water, laced with toxic chemicals, can be recycled into local water supplies.
“There’s just a lack of data, so it’s an estimate,” said Dan Mueller, senior manager with the Environmental Defense Fund in Texas, which is part of the consortium. “It’s a massive amount of salt,” Smith said. “We’d essentially create new salt flats in West Texas and collapse the global salt markets.”
insideclimate That is a huge amount of toxic water. Would hope it can be recycled.
insideclimate JaimeAndresDiez