It's "a proposal that supporters say could help the state’s water supply needs and critics warn could expose communities and agricultural land to contaminants if not treated properly."
“There’s just a huge soup of things in this water that makes it tricky to clean, to get rid of all of this messy stuff,” said Julie Range of @CommissionShift. “You have to go through a lot of different treatment steps, and how clean you get this water will be determined by this rule.”
What they don't require: specific treatments for the compounds we know are in produced water streams. "The rules do not prescribe specific treatment technologies and testing for radionuclides, PFAS or “forever chemicals,” heavy metals or other contaminants commonly found in oilfield wastewater.
"The oil and gas industry generates enormous quantities of produced water. Researchers estimate that operators produce roughly 20 million barrels of wastewater every day in Texas. Managing that waste stream has become one of the industry’s most persistent environmental and economic challenges."
Martinez writes that "The rules require testing — the kind used for municipal sewage — for salts, nitrate, E. coli, and other bacteria. Applicants would also have to demonstrate through a self-reported technical report that their projects protect groundwater resources and drinking water supplies."
“Produced water is treated to the purpose of its use and is tested for a significant number of constituents to ensure safety and that it is appropriate for its final purpose,” Lozano said.
But to skeptics, those constituents are exactly the problem.
That proposal will allow treated fracking fluid and produced water to be spread on Texas farmland under rules created to handle the (far less toxic and better understood) waste streams that come out of municipal water treatment.
The industry has said these concerns are overblown. Per Martinez, "Michael Lozano, who leads government affairs for the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, said opponents are overlooking advances in treatment technology and the expertise of regulators and scientists studying produced water.
