By Dustin Bleizeffer
December 7, 2010 -- Ben Hinman works at the new Red Desert Water Reclamation facility just west of Rawlins, assisting drivers who haul in produced water from the natural gas fields.
When a tanker pulls onto a large concrete pad, Hinman attaches a short hose with a hood at the end, and within four minutes more than 5,000 gallons of water flows into a metal grate.
The water goes to a concrete pool where oil is skimmed, then the water is pumped to either a temporary holding pond or goes directly to the treatment plant. The water is cleaned to meet standards for use in drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or it can be cleaned further for agricultural use.
Oil and natural gas wells within about a 100-mile radius of Rawlins produce more than 400 million barrels of water annually, according to industry estimates. Most all of that water is either dumped into ponds to evaporate (adding to the greenhouse effect) or is injected into deep hydrologic “waste” zones.
Hinman used to work as a pumper for one of the major natural gas producers in the Wamsutter gas field. “It was frustrating seeing them waste this water,” said Hinman.
Hinman said he was proud to work in the oil and gas industry. He cherished the lifestyle it afforded him to spend in Wyoming’s outdoors hunting and hiking. But working at the water reclamation plant is even more gratifying because he believes the process helps strike the balance most Wyomingites seek between energy development and environmental conservation.
“That’s why when I heard what Red Desert was doing, I said I’m on-board,” said Hinman.
There’s no such thing as underground bladders of pure oil or chambers of natural gas. Most all oil and natural gas wells produce a mixture of hydrocarbons and water. A lot of water.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates the nation’s oil and gas wells produce 15-20 billion barrels of water annually. In 1993, the oil and gas industry produced enough water worldwide to flow over Niagara Falls for nine days, according to the Produced Water Society, an industry trade group.
The volume of water produced with oil and gas trends with the amount of oil and gas produced. In Wyoming, the trend has been on a steep incline for the past decade.
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