Although water is vital to sustain human life, water is equally vital to the economic foundation of the Permian Basin in west Texas. Recently, large energy corporations have employed more intense fracking techniques to efficiently retrieve oil and gas. This practice places an even greater amount of stress on the valuable commodity of water, which is already a scarce resource in the semi-arid western Texas climate. The increase in the volume of water required for oil and gas operations has raised the question of how can “energy needs coexist with the needs of the people and animals and other industries that share West Texas”?[1]
Water is central to the energy industry, specifically the oil and gas industries, because water, along with sand and chemicals, are pumped into wells at a high pressure. This process, called fracking or hydraulic fracturing, is defined as is the injection of liquid at a high pressure through a well or borehole into the subterranean rock (shale) that forces open existing fissures to enable the extraction of oil or gas.[2]
Michael Webber, deputy director of The Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and a mechanical engineering professor at the university states, “As the demand for huge volumes of water for oil and gas operations continue to rise, the risk of conflict with the residents around those operations also rises.”[3] Webber also questions if the water table and the environment of this “drought-prone region” can continue to thrive, maintain and support all the other uses of water in the area such as irrigation, livestock and municipality uses.[4]
To put it into perspective, the amount of water used in the Permian Basin fracking operations “increased from 4,900 cubic meters per well in 2011 to 42,500 cubic meters per well in 2016 — an increase of almost 800 percent.”[5] Additionally, “fracking crews are using much more sand, which props open the cracks in the shale to allow oil and natural gas to escape. In one year alone, the average amount of sand pumped into a Permian well increased 50 percent, from 8.5 million pounds in 2016 to 12.8 million pounds in 2017.”[6] As Mukul Sharma, a professor in the petroleum, geosystem and chemical engineering departments at the University of Texas at Austin puts it, “you end up with higher productivity in the wells when you pump more sand and more water.”[7]
In conclusion, many researchers believe the stress that the oil and gas companies are placing on the groundwater supply is not sustainable. Ruthie Redmond, the Water Resources Program Manager for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club She states, “Once you start commercializing groundwater resources, which is what we’re seeing with fracking, that’s when you get into these huge numbers that aren’t regulated as tightly as they need to be.”[8]
[1] McEwen, Mella. (2018, February 27). Oil industry’s thirst for water could create conflict. Retrieved from: https://www.mrt.com/business/oil/article/Oil-industry-s-thirst-for-water-could-create-12706497.php
[2] fracking. (n.d.). Retrieved August 24th, 2018, from http://www.yourdictionary.com/fracking
[3] Druzin, Rye. (2018, August 20). Water use skyrockets in oil and gas drilling in West Texas Permian Basin. Retrieved from: https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/Water-use-skyrockets-in-oil-and-gas-drilling-in-13168284.php#photo-16039220
[4] Druzin, Rye. (2018, August 20). Water use skyrockets in oil and gas drilling in West Texas Permian Basin. Retrieved from: https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/Water-use-skyrockets-in-oil-and-gas-drilling-in-13168284.php#photo-16039220
[5] McEwen, Mella. (2018, February 27). Oil industry’s thirst for water could create conflict. Retrieved from: https://www.mrt.com/business/oil/article/Oil-industry-s-thirst-for-water-could-create-12706497.php
[6] McEwen, Mella. (2018, February 27). Oil industry’s thirst for water could create conflict. Retrieved from: https://www.mrt.com/business/oil/article/Oil-industry-s-thirst-for-water-could-create-12706497.php
[7] McEwen, Mella. (2018, February 27). Oil industry’s thirst for water could create conflict. Retrieved from: https://www.mrt.com/business/oil/article/Oil-industry-s-thirst-for-water-could-create-12706497.php
[8] McEwen, Mella. (2018, February 27). Oil industry’s thirst for water could create conflict. Retrieved from: https://www.mrt.com/business/oil/article/Oil-industry-s-thirst-for-water-could-create-12706497.php
Photo credit: “Fracking,” by Simon Fraser University-University Communications, Flikr