Recommendations for a New Water Treatment Facility based on Water Production Data

Abigail Paul* and Shawn T Grushecky.

Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Presentation Category: Agricultural & Environmental Sciences (Poster Presentation #59)

Student’s Major: Chemical Engineering

The production of natural gas and petroleum requires and produces a substantial amount of water with some wells producing up to two million gallons of produced water a year. The water that these unconventional wells produce must be either treated, stored underground, or reused in the fracking process. Treatment of this water proves difficult because of its high salts concentration as well as other environmental toxins. The most common method to handle the produced water is to store it underground in injection wells. Data from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection was analyzed to determine the amount of water that each well produced from 2016 to 2019 that must be either treated or otherwise disposed of. The locations of where this water was being produced were also analyzed. Based on this information, recommendations were made on where the best location for a new water treatment facility would be. The costs associated with this treatment facility were calculated and compared to the current costs associated with trucking the water for reuse or underground storage.

Funding: National Science Foundation EPSCOR project "Improving Water Management, Treatment, and Recovery in Oil and Gas Production"

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: My efforts were mainly voluntary.