New Mexico’s booming oil and gas industries are working closely with legislators and the NM environmental department to find ways to reuse and recycle water waste from fracking operations.

Every barrel of oil generates four to seven barrels of produced water, according to Bill Brancard, general counsel of the state’s Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD).  In last year’s operations, New Mexico produced 240 million barrels of oil, and with that production came over a billion barrels of produced water. The state is hoping to treat, reuse and recycle as much of that water as it safely can, both in the oilfield and potentially even outside of the industry, in order to preserve freshwater resources while supporting oil and gas development in the state.

This has been a sticking point in characterizing the produced water and how to treat it because the chemicals used to create the produced water are proprietary to each company. Read more HERE.