Characterizing fracking fluids: More details on the state’s plans for produced water NMSU photo by Josh Bachman New Mexico State University and the New Mexico Environment Department were joined Oct. 1 by state officials from around the country, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency representatives, industry leaders, environmental groups, legislators and others for an event celebrating the creation of the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium. Residents and environmentalists alike are concerned about the state’s plan to research and eventually regulate the recycling and reuse of treated produced water, a byproduct of oil and gas extraction that contains both naturally-occurring minerals, hydrocarbons and rare earth metals, as well as chemical additives and drilling constituents that are used in hydraulic fracking. 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). “There is a lot of it. Last year, New Mexico produced 240 million barrels of oil. We produced over a billion barrels of produced water,” Brancard told the audience. 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. One of the main contentions raised by attendees was the lack of information about what chemicals oil and gas producers are putting into the fracking fluid they use. “We need to know what those chemicals are in order to effectively regulate them, and we need to understand how those chemicals individually interact with each other, so we can regulate that mixture,” Kenney said during the meeting. “The lack of information that the state has about the chemicals that are used is a problem. That’s why we’re trying to solve that problem by creating regulations that would disclose that information to the state. We can’t make science-based decisions without that data.” SOURCE Political Report By Kendra Chamberlain