The Texas Legislature has also invested millions in research to clean the fracking wastewater. Critics say it’s not a viable solution to the state’s water crisis.
Meanwhile, skeptics warn the effort is not a solution at all.
Decisions regarding produced water discharge should not be driven by urgency, said Jennifer Walker, senior director of the Texas Coast and Water Program at the National Wildlife Federation. She said questions remain about how reliable the treatment methods are, whether there is enough energy to sustain them and the costs.
“We need to take our time and be really, really careful about this and build a lot of trust around it if this is the path that we’re going to go down,” she said.
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In a statement, the environmental quality commission said the permits are designed to protect receiving waters and human health, and include monitoring requirements and federally mandated limits on the amount of pollutants that can enter the water. Regulators are also considering information gathered by the Texas Produced Water Consortium, which is conducting similar research in five separate pilot projects.
Dan Muller, an engineer and consultant on produced water projects for over a decade, said the science is not yet there.
“You really cannot rush science,” he said. “I recognize that people are anxious, but we’ve got to make sure as data is generated, there’s good scientific review and frank conversations around that data, what it tells us, what it doesn’t tell us, and what the next step is.”
