Hydrochemical Implications of Brine Leakage from Subsurface Operations into Freshwater Aquifers

Subsurface operations that pressurize deeper saline formations, such as energy extraction operations or CO₂ injection for carbon geosequestration, raises concerns that leakage of saline waters will impact water quality of overlying aquifers. This work aims to characterize the geochemical composition of deep brines, with a focus on constituents that pose a human health risk and are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). A statistical analysis of the NATCARB brine database, combined with simple mixing model calculations, show total dissolved solids and concentrations of chloride, boron, arsenic, sulfate, nitrate, iron and manganese may exceed plant tolerance or regulatory levels. Twelve agricultural crops evaluated for decreased productivity in the event of brine leakage would experience some yield reduction due to increased TDS at brine-USDW ratios of < 0.1, and a 50% yield reduction at < 0.2 brine-USDW ratio. A brine-USDW ratio as low as 0.004 may result in yield reduction in the most sensitive crops. The USEPA TDS secondary standard is exceeded at a brine fraction of approximately 0.002. To our knowledge, this is the first study to consider agricultural impacts of brine leakage, even though agricultural withdrawals of groundwater in the United States are almost three times higher than public and domestic withdrawals.