Could the reuse of water help limit quakes?

The Oklahoma Water Resources Board has released a report offering solutions to the state’s potential water shortage and earthquake problem, recommending that drillers reuse wastewater rather than inject it into disposal wells.

The report is part of a broader initiative aimed at protecting and maintaining supplies of fresh water, but it also dovetails into a growing concern about the increase of earthquakes, which has been tied to wastewater injection, a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing that pumps millions of gallons of chemical-laced water to crack shale rock to release oil and gas.

In 2014, nearly 1.5 billion barrels of wastewater were injected into the ground in Oklahoma; by 2016, following a rash of quakes, state regulators limited the volumes of wastewater that companies can inject. But the state has been looking for an alternative use for the water and has considered recycling it for drilling or treating it for crop irrigation.

In Texas, which has also experienced an increase in quakes as more wastewater has been injected underground, industry officials, regulators, lawmakers and environmentalists are debating cause and effect. The state is funding a seismic monitoring program led by the University of Texas to try to determine whether there is a connection between the increase in disposal wells and the increase in seismic activity.

The Oklahoma report found that reusing wastewater in drilling would be the cheapest option for oil and gas companies. But it also suggested treating the water and using it in other industrial operations.

The task force also identified some obstacles to a reuse-recycle policy, including a shortage of pipelines for the wastewater transport, ambiguous laws over wastewater ownership and determining water-quality standards for the treated water.