In New Mexico—one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the country—researchers are trying to grow hemp, sunflowers and trees with purified fracking wastewater. For now, using such “produced water” for anything in the open environment is prohibited in the state.
Each experiment will be completely enclosed, so that no water leaks out to potentially contaminate surrounding areas with toxins, salt and oil residue.
Extracting oil and gas requires swimming pools-worth of water—on average between 1 and 9 million gallons for a single well. Even more water comes out of the earth in the process. In total, around one trillion gallons of produced water are created across the country each year…