Texas Tribune
In Texas, treated oilfield wastewater releases increasing
by By Martha Pskowski and Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News, The Texas Tribune – 2024-04-29 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Texas is pushing to allow treated oilfield wastewater discharge to revive the Pecos River and other watersheds. The practice could alleviate the disposal issues arising from injection well-induced earthquakes, but raises ecological and health concerns due to the contaminants in produced water. Federal regulations are limited, leaving state agencies like TCEQ to set standards for the various pollutants. While some companies strive to discharge safely, not all may follow suit, raising worries about potential river harm. Texas is considering produced water reuse as part of its water shortage solutions and has established the Texas Produced Water Consortium to study and develop guidelines for safely repurposing this water.
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These days the Pecos River barely fills its dry, sandy bed where it crosses West Texas, but the river could be poised to flow again — with treated oilfield wastewater.
Companies are racing to figure out what to do with the tremendous volume of noxious water that comes up from underground during oil and gas drilling in the Permian Basin, but a growing cohort of companies say they've developed a means to purify that fluid and release it in the Pecos and other watersheds.
“This is new ground for all of us and we know it's got to be done the right way,” said Robert Crain, executive vice president of Texas Pacific Water Resources, a company seeking to discharge treated water. “We're not the only folks that are chasing this.”
For decades, oil drillers have injected their wastewater, known as “produced water,” back underground for disposal. But an intensifying spate of earthquakes tied to produced water injection wells in recent years has prompted the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates drilling and injection, to tighten restrictions on injection disposal, spurring a search for alternatives.
After two years of studies, the company is applying for a state permit to discharge up 840,000 gallons per day of treated oilfield wastewater into a tributary of Salt Creek, which feeds into the Pecos River. That volume won't turn the Pecos into a roaring river but it could open doors for larger projects that could transform the river.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issued a permit for a company to discharge produced water in Atascosa County, southeast of San Antonio in the Eagle Ford Shale basin, earlier this year and is reviewing another application near Eagle Pass. A second company has also applied to discharge into the Pecos River watershed.
But scientists and environmental advocates have raised questions about the impacts of introducing this new waste stream into rivers. Federal regulations for these discharges are limited, delegating individual states to oversee their environmental and health impacts. Now responsibility lies with TCEQ to set requirements for these new discharges and the myriad pollutants found in produced water.
Everything from naturally occurring radioactive material, to dozens of toxic drilling lubricants, to “forever chemicals” known as PFAS have been detected in produced water. Existing water quality standards do not cover many of these constituents, leaving regulators to evaluate the risk of these discharges with limited toxicity data.
Texas joins states like Pennsylvania and Wyoming that are among the few that have permitted produced water discharges. Pollution problems related to produced water discharges have been documented in both states. In neighboring New Mexico, regulators have decided to wait for more scientific study before issuing permits for discharges.
When it comes to produced water reuse, some companies are putting in serious effort to do it safely, said Ira Yates, founder of Friends of the Pecos and heir to a West Texas oil fortune. But he worries that if the gates are opened on discharges, other startups won't be as thoughtful.
“All people are really trying to do is get rid of their water so they can pump more oil,” said Yates. “Let's make sure that, as they develop their plans, they keep the best interest of the river in mind and not just some nebulous idea that it's a place to dump water anytime you want to.”
A TCEQ spokesperson, Richard Richter, said the agency's water quality standards “comply with state and federal water quality rules” and are “protective of surface water quality, human health, and the environment.” He said the agency will set limits on specific pollutants in produced water and that these limits could include both pollutants that are currently regulated and those that are not.
Texas ramps up discharge permit program
Produced water is typically injected underground through thousands of disposal wells around the state. But restrictions have been tightened on disposal wells since they have been linked to earthquakes in West Texas. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said last year that disposal capacity in the Permian Basin “is becoming an issue.” The company had to reduce deep injection by 75 percent in one of the seismic areas, according to the Permian Basin Petroleum Association magazine.
Oil and gas producers recycle a small portion of produced water. Treating the water, which can be ten times saltier than seawater and is often laced with leftover fracking chemicals, has been uneconomical so far, especially compared with the low cost of injection disposal.
West of the 98th Meridian, a north-south line that roughly divides the arid West from the water-rich East, the Environmental Protection Agency delegates authority to states to permit discharges of produced water into bodies of water. EPA numerical standards for produced water discharges only cover oil and grease, leaving states to determine what other constituents to regulate.
These discharges must be beneficial to wildlife or agriculture, according to EPA regulations. Among Western states, Wyoming has authorized such discharges for over two decades. Colorado's Water Quality Control Division has issued 14 permits to discharge produced water into surface water. California does not permit discharges into rivers but has permitted select discharges into waterways that only flow part of the year, according to the State Water Board's Division of Water Quality. New Mexico is yet to approve discharges of produced water.
In the East, Pennsylvania authorized discharges of treated produced water from central wastewater treatment plants into rivers. However, Pennsylvania State University researchers later found elevated levels of salt and radioactive chemicals likely linked to the Marcellus Shale formation in sediments downstream of the discharges.
TCEQ's Richter said the agency received four permit applications to discharge produced water during 2023 and 2024. Texas Pacific Water Resources and NGL Water Solutions Permian both applied for permits in the Pecos River watershed of the Permian Basin.
Another two applications are in the Eagle Ford Shale. In Atascosa County, TCEQ granted Dorchester Operating Company a permit to discharge treated oil and gas wastewater into three unnamed tributaries that feed into the Lower Atascosa River. TCEQ is currently reviewing a permit application from CMR Energy to discharge up to 653,000 gallons per day of treated oil and gas wastewater east of Eagle Pass into Comanche Creek and its tributaries, which flow into the Nueces River. The discharge is expected to contain chloride, petroleum hydrocarbons and naturally occurring radioactive materials, according to TCEQ records.
For discharges east of the 98th Meridian, TCEQ first had to obtain authorization from the EPA to create a permit program, as previously reported in Inside Climate News. TCEQ issued the first of these permits to Baywater Operating in Harris County, according to Richter. Baywater's permit was terminated in March 2024 because the company was no longer discharging.
Texas has site-specific water quality standards for segments of different waterways, including the Pecos, Richter said. This means TCEQ permits different levels of pollutants depending on the conditions of that specific river.
Amy Hardberger, a professor of water law and policy at Texas Tech University, said more research and review is needed to determine appropriate uses of produced water. “The Clean Water Act never contemplated this water going into rivers and streams,” she said.
In a forthcoming paper, Hardberger points out that many of the constituents in produced water are difficult or costly to test for and do not have established EPA toxicity standards. These are numerical values measuring the risk presented by exposure to a chemical or contaminant. She compares the EPA's list of standards for public water supplies, which includes exposure guidelines for approximately 90 contaminants, with the over 1,100 chemicals that have been found in produced water.
And she warned that the science on public safety shouldn't be rushed to find a quick fix for produced water disposal.
“What's driving the train on this is not water shortage and the potential of an additional water supply,” she said. “What is really driving the change is they are running out of disposal opportunities.”
The EPA did not respond to questions for this story.
Two permits pending in the Pecos watershed
The Pecos River runs from the mountains of Northern New Mexico into the arid scrubland of West Texas and eventually joins the Rio Grande. The river passes through areas of intensive oil and gas drilling and has also been plagued by salinity problems.
Texas Pacific Water Resources' permit application states that discharges will be beneficial for aquatic species downstream of the discharges into Salt Creek. The creek is home to the Pecos pupfish, a threatened species in Texas that only lives in a few locations in the watershed.
Crain said Texas Pacific Water Resources has developed a process to treat the wastewater up to discharge standards cost-effectively. The technology remains undisclosed while patents are pending, he said, but is already used in the nuclear and commercial food products sectors.
He said the company collaborated with research groups in several states to identify contaminants in produced water and develop means to test for their presence. The company ran a greenhouse study growing various grasses with its treated water and has sent them to a lab to check for accumulation of toxins.
Crain said the company has “gone beyond what's currently regulated” to test samples for compounds that have been identified in produced water. Those results were included in the company's application to TCEQ. The testing found constituents including Radium-226 and Radium-228, types of naturally occurring radioactive material, and benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene, which are elements found in crude oil and gas production. There were also detectable amounts of some PFAS chemicals in the samples.
Adrianne Lopez, the company's research and development manager, said that the company will reduce constituents including Radium-226 and Radium-228 to the TCEQ-recommended level. They are also working with researchers at New Mexico State University to conduct human health risk assessments and whole effluent toxicity testing to determine safe levels.
Now it is TCEQ's turn, based on this data, to set standards for the quality of the water to be discharged.
NGL Water Solutions Permian applied to discharge up to 16.9 million gallons per day of treated produced water near the Red Bluff Reservoir on the Pecos River in Reeves County. The company is a subsidiary of Tulsa-based NGL Energy Partners.
Discharged water will include trace amounts of organics, ammonia, volatile organic compounds and total dissolved solids, according to a TCEQ public notice. An NGL representative declined to comment for this story, saying that permitting details were still being determined with TCEQ. The agency administratively approved the permit and is now completing technical review.
NGL has an existing discharge program in Wyoming's Anticline Basin. According to the company website, NGL discharges nearly 11,000 barrels per day or four million barrels per year in Wyoming.
Produced water discharges in Wyoming have recently come under scrutiny. The state environmental regulator reported that several sections of streams where produced water is discharged are polluted to the point they no longer support aquatic life. Last year regulators issued a violation to Dallas-based Aethon Energy Operating for exceeding permitted levels of sulfide, barium and radium in its discharges, according to the news outlet WyoFile.
Texas Backs Produced Water ReuseOfficials in Texas have identified produced water reuse as a core strategy to address forecasted regional water shortages. A billion-dollar water fund passed last year provides money for projects that bring new water supplies to the state.
According to state Sen. Charles Perry, eligible strategies include seawater desalination, groundwater desalination, inter-state agreements and produced water reuse.
Money from the new water fund should “be used solely to finance the development and acquisition of new water supply,” Perry wrote in a letter to the Texas Water Development Board. “This means water supply that is truly a new input into the state water cycle.”
Texas lawmakers also passed a bill in 2021 creating the Texas Produced Water Consortium, which brings together academic, industry and non-profit representatives to research the issue. A 2023 bill provided additional funding for the consortium to start pilot projects for produced water reuse.
The consortium, based at Texas Tech University, is preparing a report for the state legislature in the fall with updates on research into produced water and pilot projects. A representative of the consortium said its Standards Committee is compiling a database of water quality guidelines from multiple states, which includes hundreds of constituents that could be in produced water.
While there is still a long way to go, Ira Yates, of Friends of the Pecos, said he's “very optimistic” that discharges could be beneficial for the Pecos River in the future.
“But I'm also very concerned,” he said, “that the people talking about putting the water back in the Pecos do not understand the hydrology and the river issues.”
Disclosure: The Permian Basin Petroleum Association and Texas Tech University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Texas Tribune
These Texans aren’t taking buyouts despite repeated floods
by By Emily Foxhall, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Recent floods in Harris County, Texas, have devastated homes along the San Jacinto River. Tom Madigan, who owns multiple properties, quickly started repairs without knowing the Harris County Flood Control District aims to buy out such flood-prone properties. The region has a longstanding buyout program to remove homes from high-risk flood areas, with about 800 out of 2,400 targeted properties purchased. However, buyouts are voluntary and often insufficient for low-income residents. Despite the program, many choose to stay due to affordability and community ties, while others like Madigan remain skeptical of receiving a fair offer.
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HARRIS COUNTY — After the floodwaters earlier this month just about swallowed two of the six homes that 60-year-old Tom Madigan owns on the San Jacinto River, he didn't think twice about whether to fix them. He hired people to help, and they got to work stripping the walls, pulling up flooring and throwing out water-logged furniture.
What Madigan didn't know: The Harris County Flood Control District wants to buy his properties as part of an effort to get people out of dangerously flood-prone areas.
Back-to-back storms drenched southeast Texas in late April and early May, causing flash flooding and pushing rivers out of their banks and into low-lying neighborhoods. Officials across the region urged people in vulnerable areas to evacuate.
Like Madigan's, some places that were inundated along the San Jacinto in Harris County have flooded repeatedly. And for nearly 30 years, the flood control district has been trying to clear out homes around the river by paying property owners to move, then returning the lots to nature.
The recent floods show why buyout programs can be important. These spots typically flood first and worse. Gov. Greg Abbott reported that hundreds of rescues took place in the state while the floods destroyed homes. A man drowned and a child was swept away into the floods. One Harris County resident described climbing on top of his motor home as the water rose before first responders rescued him.
But the disaster and its aftermath also illustrate why buyouts are complicated to carry out even in Harris County, home to Houston, which has one of the most robust buyout programs in the country. The flood control district has identified roughly 2,400 properties as current buyout candidates around the San Jacinto; the district and county have bought about 800 of them.
Nearly all of the district's buyouts are voluntary. If an owner doesn't want to sell, the district can't force them out.
Buyouts make sense for some people who can't be protected from floods, said Alessandra Jerolleman, director of research for the Center on Environment, Land and Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
But buyouts might not provide lower-income people enough money to get somewhere safer, she said, and they could lose important support like child care from nearby family or neighbors.
“It's not as though it's a guarantee of reducing risks to that family,” Jerolleman said.
People who live near the river and who have endured repeated floods explained that they've stayed because it's affordable and, most of the time, peaceful. Where else would they be able to buy anything like it? Some said they didn't think the government would offer them what they consider a fair price to sell their land. Some didn't know the buyout program existed.
Madigan started buying homes more than 15 years ago in the unincorporated River Terrace neighborhood because they were cheap. On Tuesday, the Houston firefighter drank a Heineken and grilled hamburgers for his work crew outside his most damaged house, which he rents to his brother. Sodden rugs baked in the sun on the driveway.
Madigan said he might have taken a buyout if it was a reasonable offer — but he doubted it would be. He said he needed to get the properties ready again for his renters. “I can't wait,” he said.
Two blocks away, water had swept through a yellow house Madigan rents to a family with a teenage son. One of the workers fixing the property, 21-year-old Omar Reyna, watched the family throw out pretty much everything they had. Piecing together new laminate flooring with his dad, Reyna kept thinking about a trash bag of Teddy bears and stuffed toys he tossed out for them.
He wondered if the parents had been saving the toys for another kid they might have in the future.
“The faster we get it done, the faster they can come back in here,” Reyna said.
Some people choose to live with the risk of flooding
The San Jacinto is the largest river in the state's most populous county. For years before Harris County's first floodplain maps were drawn up in the mid-1980s, people built homes near its banks. Even today, people can still build in the vast floodplain if the houses are high enough and have enough stormwater detention.
The flood control district tries to buy out homes in pockets of the floodplain that are deepest, said James Wade, manager for the district's property acquisition department. Those are places where engineers can't easily fix flooding problems.
Buyouts are meant to get people out of flood zones before their property floods again, not to help in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The process is slow: In some cases, it can take 18 months or longer to approve a buyout application, Wade said. The district pays owners the market value or pre-flood value for their house, determined by a third-party appraiser, plus moving expenses and a supplement to help them get into a house out of the floodplain, Wade said.
“It's a very equitable, fair program,” Wade said — but still some people don't want to leave.
Those who stay learn to adapt. They build homes on stilts. They monitor the river level and watch for releases of water from the Lake Conroe dam upstream. Some know intimately the routine of rebuilding: gut the house, clean it, put it back together.
The floor of 49-year-old Sean Vincent's house in the Forest Cove neighborhood in northeast Houston is 15 feet above the ground. Three feet of water flooded it when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. This month, the floods reached five feet high on Vincent's property. He cleaned out his waterlogged ground-level shed with help from church members. On Tuesday, he was building new shelves for it.
But most of the time Vincent, who works in railroad traffic control, said he enjoys the space surrounded by tall trees with room for his three kids.
“It's just really not a major part of our life,” Vincent said of the flooding. “Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it's now happened to us twice in seven years … It's sort of a trade-off for us. And it is lovely out here.”
“Where are you going to go?”
Then there are those who stay because they don't see anywhere else to go.
Jack St. John, 67, a retired long-haul truck driver, moved to Northshore 43 years ago and has had to clean up after two floods. He worries any time flooding threatens, but the neighborhood's advantages keep him there: He has no water bill because he has a well. His taxes are reasonable. The neighborhood has a fish fry in the spring and a barbecue in the fall.
“You know, when you leave, where are you going to go?” he said. “What's it going to cost to buy into another place?”
Farther northeast, in the Idle Wild and Idle Glen neighborhoods, the floods forced some residents to sleep under tarps. On one largely forested street, boats were turned sideways or flipped upside down. A small building was lodged in the trees. A car was in the ditch.
For several years, Elvia Bethea, 68, has driven from her home in Humble to check on people and pets here, and pick up stray animals. On Tuesday, she and other volunteers gave John Gray, 50, bamboo yard torches to fight the many mosquitoes, plus two trays of chocolate-covered strawberries.
Gray said he couldn't afford to fix up his destroyed house. He earns a living printing labor law posters for businesses. His printers at home were destroyed.
Gray said he had never heard of the buyout program but would consider taking one.
“Who do I call?” Gray asked. “I don't have a clue.”
From the back of a white SUV, Bethea handed some hot dogs to Jose Tabores, 68, who lives on Gray's land in a trailer now filled with mud.
“I'm coming for dinner, remember!” Bethea teased him.
Nearby, 51-year-old Veronika Scheid had been sleeping in a wet tent. The flood washed the shipping crate she lived in down the road and into the trees — along with her and her neighbors' belongings.
At a low point, when Scheid was crying over all she lost, she found a pink-and-white beaded necklace with stitching in the shape of a “V,” like her name. At the end was a charm shaped like a house.
She was grateful the person who owned the land where she stayed hadn't taken a buyout. Otherwise she would have nowhere to go.
“At least we have this,” Scheid said.
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Trump, Abbott speak at Dallas NRA convention
by By Annie Xia, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-18 19:24:41
SUMMARY:
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DALLAS— At the National Rifle Association's annual convention on Saturday, Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged the thousands gathered to vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election as a way to ensure their Second Amendment rights.
“The NRA has stood with me from the very beginning, and with your vote, I will stand strong for your rights and liberties,” Trump said. “I heard it a few weeks ago that if gun owners voted, we would swamp them at levels that nobody's ever seen before. I think you're a rebellious bunch, but let's be rebellious and vote this time.”
Trump and Abbott spoke to a room packed with NRA members, some of which sported supportive attire from the standard-fare red caps to a dress covered with photos of the former president.
During the convention, the NRA released its endorsement for the 45th president, and the Trump political campaign announced the launch for the “Gun Owners for Trump” coalition.
Abbott touted his track record on gun rights by pointing to Texas laws passed last year, such as House Bill 3137 which prohibits local governments from requiring firearm owners to buy liability insurance. To energetic applause, he said the law ensured people would not be forced to pay to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Abbott also described the state's successful crackdown on the recent pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, in which protesters are demanding the schools divest from from companies tied to Israel or weapons manufacturing amid the Israel-Hamas War.
“When they tried to pull that stunt in Texas, our Department of Public Safety cleared the area, arrested the protesters and put them in jail,” Abbott said. “Unlike some of these radical leftist universities like Columbia, UCLA and far too many others, in Texas we don't tolerate paid protesters who tried to hijack our college campuses.”
Almost to the day, the NRA convention takes place two years after the Uvalde school shooting, where an 18-year-old gunned down an elementary school with a legally purchased assault rifle. The shooter killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers with an AR-15 style rifle.
During the 2023 legislative session, Uvalde families unsuccessfully pressed Texas policymakers to pass a raise-the-age law, which would have upped the minimum age for buying semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21.
“Donald Trump and Texas Republicans made the gun violence epidemic worse, especially in our state, where we have seen nine mass shootings just in the last 15 years,” said a statement by Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic Party Chair, on Friday. “Even after Uvalde parents pleaded with Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz for commonsense gun safety laws, they decided, like Trump “ that the NRA and gun lobby was more important.”
Instead the legislature approved a school safety bill that established preventative measures toward school shootings. The law included a mandate that every school must hire an armed security officer and the creation of a department within the Texas Education Agency that can compel districts to adhere to active-shooter protocols.
During his speech, Trump endorsed four Republican candidates who are fighting in late May runoffs to be their party's nominee: Alan Schoolcraft, David Covey, Helen Kerwin and Brett Hagenbuch. Each of them has already received endorsements by Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton or both. Schoolcraft, Covey and Kerwin are running against Republican incumbents in the Texas House who impeded Abbott's signature school voucher bill or voted for Paxton's impeachment based on accusations of corruption.
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Photos: Texas storms cause widespread damage in Houston area
by By Marie D. De Jesús and Antranik Tavitian, Houston Landing, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-17 14:45:42
SUMMARY: Severe storms hit the Houston area on Thursday evening, resulting in widespread damage, four fatalities, and power outages affecting nearly 900,000 homes and businesses. The Houston Office of Emergency Management is beginning recovery efforts, while officials discourage unnecessary travel. Reports from Houston Landing detail the extent of the destruction, which includes knocked-down power lines and damaged buildings, such as the Wells Fargo Plaza and the CenterPoint Energy Plaza. Photos provided by Antranik Tavitian and Marie D. De Jesús illustrate the damage seen across the region.
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Severe storms tore through the Houston area Thursday evening, causing widespread damage, killing at least four people and leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power.
Gale force winds up to 100 mph knocked over power lines, blew out windows and toppled trees throughout the region. Houston Office of Emergency Management spokesperson Brent Taylor said officials will begin the recovery process once debris and damage are cleared. In the meantime, Houston Mayor John Whitmire and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo urged residents to avoid all unnecessary travel.
The storm ravaged Harris County — from transmission towers crushed in suburban Cypress to stricken oak trees blockading traffic to high-rise windows shattered throughout downtown Houston.
Here's a look at some of the damage wrought, reported by Houston Landing:
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