Carlsbad Current-Argus reported<\/a>. Texas officials referred to the activity as \u201cunprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\nMichael Hightower, director of the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium at New Mexico State University, said it was clear Texas\u2019 earthquake problem was spreading toward New Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know there\u2019s a lot of water coming over from Texas,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you inject all that, you\u2019re going to have seismicity problems.”<\/p>\n
He said most of the seismicity being observed is due to saltwater disposal wells and possible over-pressurization.<\/p>\n
The consortium worked with Texas regulators, Hightower said, aiming to devise technology that could treat produced water and recycle it for uses like agriculture or even drinking water.<\/p>\n
Many oil and gas companies already recycle produced water for subsequent fracking operations, but Hightower said expanding the potential for its reuse presents an economic opportunity and a way to address environmental and water scarcity concerns tied to fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big issue is how do you reduce the volume of produced water you\u2019re disposing of. That is the exact mission of the consortium,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
New Mexico was targeting a goal of a 30-60% reduction in produced water disposal, Hightower said.<\/p>\n
Jason Jennaro is CEO at Breakwater Midstream, a company that transports produced water and treats it. He said the recent seismic activity made finding alternatives to disposal injection more urgent.<\/p>\n
With a second commercial-scale water recycling facility, the company estimates it could treat and distribute more than half a million barrels of produced water a day for the Midland Basin.<\/p>\n
\u201cOperators are looking for environmentally sustainable alternatives to disposal within these SRAs and seismic clusters, which is why system interconnectivity and commercial recycling is central to sensible stewardship of the water,\u201d Jennaro said.<\/p>\n
Regulatory action from the Texas commission, he said, will severely impact operations and force the industry to seek alternatives.<\/p>\n
Jennaro said the occurrence of smaller earthquakes began to increase in 2017, when oil and gas boomed in the region, up to about three per day recently.<\/p>\n
In 2021, records show the region was on track for more than 1,200 earthquakes with magnitudes of 1 to 4.<\/p>\n
With more seismicity in Texas, Jennaro said that could mean sending more water to New Mexico to avoid Texas\u2019 increased regulatory action.<\/p>\n
Adrienne Sandoval, director of New Mexico\u2019s Oil Conservation Division, said her agency is encouraging operators to recycle and reuse water instead of injecting it.<\/p>\n
To avoid over-pressurization, Sandoval said the division implemented well-spacing requirements as a condition of permitted disposal wells.<\/p>\n
Sandoval said the state has seen some induced seismicity on the New Mexico side of the border.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sort of along the Texas line and along the Lea and Eddy county line. We\u2019re working with operators to gather data,\u201d she said, noting that officials want to be proactive and protective \u201dso we can minimize seismic activity as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
of quakes caused by oil, gas in New Mexico rising As more seismic activity was reported closer to the New Mexico\/Texas line, officials in New Mexico have been watching closely and gathering data. (Associated Press file)du1-i-syn CARLSBAD, N.M. \u2013 Multiple earthquakes were felt earlier this fall in West Texas, leading regulators in that state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43631"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}