Oklahoma’s oil and gas injection wells are cleared to start accepting cities’ wastewater.
Tim Ward with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality said there shouldn’t be any concerns about the new fluids.
"These waste streams are of much better quality in general than the waste stream that most of these injection wells are normally used to seeing," Ward said.
The wastewater isn’t suited for irrigation.
"Generally speaking, we're looking at waters that are already extremely hard waters, and so by the time we get a reject stream, that water's so high in salts that it's of no beneficial use to crop land," Ward said.
One alternative to injection wells was sending the water to evaporation ponds.
"That's one option that's fairly expensive because those ponds are going to be several — you know, if not tens of acres, they're probably going to be hundreds of acres in size," Ward said.
The other options for disposal are pumping wastewater into a river or treating it more. Ward says Oklahoma’s rivers are too clean to take wastewater, and further treatment is expensive.
Oklahoma’s injection wells have been linked to increased seismic activity in the state. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission regulates the state’s injection wells, but DEQ had to approve pumping municipal wastewater into them.
