We’ve been so focused on air quality and climate change, we haven’t turned our gaze to what’s happening right in front of us. There is legislation pending in the Permian Basin states of NM and TX that will give the by-product/produced water to the oil industry to clean and resell back to the landowners or municipalities.
Somewhere in the last year or so, the oil industry heard us and others talking about cleaning this water that they typically throw away and putting it to use on the arid lands to benefit agriculture, conservation, and our aquifers.
The oil industry seems to have embraced the concept, but they want to own the water and sell it back to you and me.
Does this bother anybody else?