AI Summary
5 min readIn a Santa Fe Extension Master Gardeners edition of The Garden Journal, host Alexa Bradford speaks with experts Dale Doramus (retired hydrogeologist with Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter), Rachel Kahn (deputy director of Amigos Bravos), and Tannis Fox (Western Environmental Law Center) about produced water from oil and gas operations in New Mexico. They explain its composition, management challenges, and the push to allow its treated discharge or reuse in surface and groundwater, amid ongoing regulatory debates.
Produced Water Basics
Produced water is wastewater generated during oil and gas drilling and fracking. It combines water injected into wells with chemicals for fracking and ancient formation water from underground reservoirs. The result is highly complex and toxic: extremely saline (often several times saltier than seawater), loaded with metals, chemicals, and toxins. Volumes are large—even drilling alone produces it before oil or gas flows—and the mix amplifies contaminants from injection.
Historically, management keeps it mostly in the oilfield. A small portion is reused there for operations. The bulk goes to deep injection wells into briny formations (costly, prone to well damage, and linked to earthquakes in the Permian Basin) or lined evaporation ponds. These methods contain it in theory, but industry seeks alternatives due to expense and issues.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:24) **Introduction to Produced Water Risks** - Host introduces panel on discharge/reuse of oil/gas wastewater and its impacts to NM water quality
- 2 (03:50) **Definition of Produced Water** - Dale explains as toxic byproduct from drilling/fracking, mixing injected fluids with saline formation water containing metals/chemicals/toxins
- 3 (06:03) **Current Management Practices** - Reuse limited in oilfields; rest via injection wells (expensive, causes seismicity) or lined evaporation ponds
- 4 (08:10) **WATR Alliance Petition Overview** - Group seeks rules for treated produced water discharge to surface/groundwater; prior petition denied, decision pending May 12
- 5 (09:24) **State of Research and Risks** - Tannis notes research promising but preliminary; no scalable safe treatment proven for discharge
- 6 (09:46) **History of 2025 Prohibition Rule** - WQCC adopted full ban on discharge after 1.5-year process based on expert science
- 7 (11:34) **Research Details and Funding** - NMSU-led consortium (industry-funded via fees) shows specific tech promise but all studies caveat need for more work
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Show Notes
Join host Alexa Bradford in conversation with Rachel Conn, Deputy Director of Amigos Bravos, Dale Doremus, retired hydrogeologist and water policy expert of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, and Tannis Fox, senior attorney at Western Environmental Law Center as they discuss the current status of research and the regulatory environment for oilfield produced water in the state of New Mexico.
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