A Transformational Approach to Apply Frac and Produced Water to Beneficial Re-Use in Colorado for Sustainable Water Resource Management

Recent technological innovations in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (well-stimulation) have transformed the nation’s shale formations from marginal producers of natural gas to substantial contributors to the nation’s energy supplies.  At the same time, critical water resource problems have developed with respect to managing and disposing of the significant volumes of both frac flow-back waters and produced water, in an environmentally safe manner.  Altela, Inc. has developed a fundamentally new produced water treatment product, the AltelaRain^® System that creates pure water from highly salinated and contaminated water.  This presentation highlights recent legal and regulatory permitting in Colorado for successful re-use of purified produced water by Altela.  With CO State Engineer produced water rulemaking underway following the CO Supreme Court’s 2009 Vance v. Wolfe decision, time is ripe for demonstrating produced water can be economically treated and transformed into an asset instead of merely being treated as a waste.  In support of treating and re-using produced water in the Piceance Basin of Colorado, Altela has received approval from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Water Quality Control Division to place the treated, clean water into the Colorado River drainage for valuable in-stream flows.  In addition, the Colorado Division of Water Resources, State Engineer Office, has approved and issued precedent-setting permits to place the treated, clean water to beneficial use.  By treating frac flow-back and produced water as an asset available for re-use, a transformation approach can be adopted.  Oil and gas companies do not solely have to minimize potential impacts to water resources but in fact have the compelling opportunity to beneficially re-use and expand water supplies.  In this way, the nation’s oil and gas industry can become a key element of environmental sustainability and stewardship instead of being viewed as an adversarial user of increasingly scarce water supplies.