EPA weighs allowing oil companies to pump wastewater into rivers, streams

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle by James Osborne 10/15/2018

For almost as long as there have been oil wells in Texas, drillers have pumped the vast quantities of brackish wastewater that comes up with the oil into underground wells thousands of feet beneath the earth’s surface.

But with concern growing that the underlying geology in the Permian Basin and other shale plays are reaching capacity for disposal wells, the Trump administration is examining whether to adjust decades-old federal clean water regulations to allow drillers to discharge wastewater directly into rivers and streams from which communities draw their water supplies.

Technically speaking, drillers are allowed to do this in limited circumstances under federal law, but the process of cleaning salt-, heavy metal- and chemical-laden wastewater to the point it would meet state or federal water standards is so costly, it’s rarely done, experts say. Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is examining whether federal laws regulating wastewater from oil and gas wells should be adjusted.

“Technology is changing. At some point if your disposal options are limited or it becomes so expensive you’re having to truck water to be disposed of several hundred miles away, companies will do it,” said Jared Craighead, legal counsel to Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton. “It might not make sense today but maybe in a year or two.”

The EPA is consulting with experts and conducting public meetings around the country, toward making a decision next summer, Lee Forsgreen, deputy assistant administrator at EPA’s Office of Water, said in Washington Tuesday. “We’re very much in a listening mode now,” he said.

The primary question facing the EPA is whether water standards can be adjusted so oil and gas companies can economically treat wastewater so it can be pumped into the water supply without contaminating drinking water supplies or killing off local wildlife.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/EPA-weighs-allowing-oil-companies-to-pump-13303676.php

[IsailedawayfromFR]

this should prove interesting.  Am unsure if altogether wise, though as it certainly will open up big liabilities compared to underground injection.

[thackney]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-without-freshwater-at-a-texas-oilfield/

..."We're not using freshwater out here," Lucian Wray, production manager for Apache's South Permian region, said of the company's Barnhart operating area, which is run out of a former hunting lodge. "We are recycling 100 percent of our produced water. We don't dispose of any of it."...

...Excluding outlays for its homegrown recycling system, Apache says it costs 29 cents a barrel to treat flowback water. That is a fraction of the $2.50 per barrel it costs to dispose of water using a third party....