From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent (John Colson):
“At some point, is unusable,” [Doug Dennison, environmental and governmental affairs representative for the Bill Barrett Corp] said of the water that is being recycled and reused.
When that point is reached, he said, the liquid, which is high in salts, heavy metals and other dissolved solids, is either piped or trucked to disposal sites elsewhere in the West, or it is pumped into injection wells.
He said injection wells normally reach deeper into the ground than wells used to extract oil and gas, so that produced water does not mix with the oil and gas pools.
Injection wells are coming into increasing use in the Piceance Basin, which covers western Colorado, eastern Utah and southern Wyoming, Dennison said.
Barrett has four injection wells south of Silt, and may sink more into the ground if increased storage is needed.
He conceded that some companies still use evaporation ponds to dispose of waste water, but added, “I think that’s a thing of the past.”
The full presentations by Dennison and Bittner, as well as the remainder of the EAB meeting, will be televised on Rifle’s Cable Channel 10 at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Sunday.