Legislation Targets Mandates for Water Recycling in Oil, Gas Industry

Published on May 8, 2013 14:30 by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Government

Legislation introduced last week into the Texas Legislature mandating the recycling of produced and flowback water from hydraulic fracturing operations mark the most recent efforts by lawmakers to make water recycling mandatory.

With Texas' population expected to reach 46.3 million people over the next 50 years, drought conditions over the past three years and water shortages over the past five years, oil and gas and other industries that consume a significant amount of water have been scrutinized by the public, environmental groups and government officials. Texas does not have enough existing supplies today to meet demand for water in times of drought, according to Texas' State Water Plan.

Concerns about water usage have grown in recent years not only in Texas, but communities across the United States, said Gabriel E. Eckstein, an attorney with the law firm Sullivan & Worcester and a professor specializing in water, environmental, natural resources and international law at Texas Weslayan University School of Law in Fort Worth, in an interview with Rigzone. In recent years, a host of water-related bills from the construction of new dams to aquifer storage to water recycling have been introduced to the state legislature, Eckstein commented. Major discussions have also taken place to use money from the state's Rainy Day Fund as seed money for infrastructure to meet Texas' future water supply needs.

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