3. Reuse by municipalities
1. Reuse for enhanced oil recovery
Along with irrigation, produced water may be used for municipality purposes. While seemingly unconventional, these uses range from cement production to firefighting to dust suppression for roads and landfills. See Laura Slansky, Four Steps to Quickly Evaluate Produced Water Reuse Option Viability , Environmental Protection (June 1, 2019). Another potential use for treated produced water may be to “unleash” American energy by using the water for cooling of data centers that house vast numbers of servers which generate substantial heat. See Benoit Morenne, The Oil Patch’s ‘Manhattan Project’: How to Fix Its Gargantuan Water Problem , The Wall Street Journal (April 21, 2025). Treating and reusing produced water transforms a costly waste disposal challenge into a valuable resource. By eliminating the need for large-scale disposal, a former burden may be turned into an asset with beneficial uses across agriculture, industry, and municipalities.
Enhanced oil recovery can occur via waterflooding. Waterflooding is a secondary recovery method that involves injecting water into a reservoir formation to displace residual oil. See Waterflooding, Soc’y of Petroleum Eng’rs (Jan. 29, 2025). Waterflooding is aimed at maintaining reservoir pressure while driving the oil towards production wells. See id . Waterflooding techniques extend a field’s productive life, resulting in the recovery of 20% to 40% of the original oil in place. See Jie Cao et al., Analysis of Waterflooding Oil Recovery Efficiency and Influencing Factors in the Tight Oil Reservoirs of Jilin Oilfield , 13 Processes 1490 (2025). Produced water, instead of groundwater, can be injected into reservoirs as a secondary flood. See Basic Information About Water Reuse , U.S. EPA (updated Apr. 8, 2025). Utilizing produced water for secondary recovery methods, such as waterflooding, reduces the demand on freshwater resources and allows for preservation of groundwater for essential uses, recycling a costly byproduct of oil and gas production and reducing overall disposal costs.
Along with the reuse of produced water, extraction of valuable minerals from the waste may also prove to be lucrative in coming years.
2. Reuse by irrigation
4. Extraction of valuable materials
Beneficial reuse of produced water is gaining traction as a strategy to address water scarcity and reduce reliance on freshwater resources. See Jamiya Barnett, How Water Reuse Can Address Scarcity , Envtl. & Energy Study Inst. (Dec. 17, 2024). Although still in the early stages of development, treated produced water has the potential to be used for irrigation. See Leslie Lee, Can Treated Produced Water Safely Irrigate Crops? , Tex. Water Res. Inst. (Aug. 1, 2025), In research funded by WaterBridge Operating, LLC, produced water will be treated in a three-step process by a water industry partner, using absorption, regeneration, and membranes. Preliminary studies found that produced water had minimal negative effects on plant development and even improved soil carbon levels, pH, and micronutrient availability, suggesting that crops such as cotton, alfalfa, and hay could potentially thrive under these circumstances. See id.
As previously described, produced water is a mixture of fracking fluid, hypersaline brine, residual hydrocarbons, and other substances of varying concentrations. See Grzegorz Rotko, et. al., Oilfield Brine as a Source of Water and Valuable Raw Materials—Proof of Concept on a Laboratory Scale , MDPI (May 21, 2024). While produced water contains many minerals, lithium has stood out amongst the rest. Currently, the global lithium market sits around $24 billion but is expected to rise anywhere from $55 to $75 billion by 2030. See Lithium Market Size , Share & Trends Analysis Report , Grand View Research, https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry- analysis/lithium-market (last visited Aug. 14, 2025) (attributing growth to EV and energy-storage demand). With reports of high concentrations of lithium within Texas’ produced water, Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) is an emerging method
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G rowth T hrough E ducat i on - J uly / A ugus t / S ept ember 2025
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