Beneficial-Use Water Pilot Test Solves Key Water Issues

Agriculture Company, Encore Green, Turns Oil Well Produced Water into Beneficial-Use Water

Wyoming based agriculture company, Encore Green, LLC has just released the results of their pilot water test, which took barrels of produced water from an oil well and converted it into water that is ideal for beneficial-use.

This solves potentially three problems at once. The oil industry produces 890 billion gallons of produced (by-product) water in the US each year. With a tiny percentage used for fracking, this water is disposed of, either by injection into the ground or left to evaporate. Meanwhile adjacent to these same oil wells that are producing this water are the nation’s farms and ranches, which are in desperate need of water for crops and herds. At the same time, over in the town, municipalities struggle for relief for the growing demand for water for homes and businesses.

“This has changed everything,” says Encore Green owner, Darlene Nash. “Our proprietary methodology aids the oil industry by giving them a solution instead throwing away the water. The methodology allows the agricultural community to have easy-to-come by water. And if water is not being used for irrigation and herds, then there’s more water for the municipalities. Everybody wins. With such great test results, we have now taken this from theory into practice. “

The primary goal of cleaning the water has been for beneficial use for the agricultural community.

“The test results are remarkable,” says certified professional agronomist, Neil Fehringer from Fehringer Agricultural Consulting. “This water is now good quality irrigation water.”

What makes these results landmark is that the produced water was cleaned within an economic model that is better or the same as the cost of conventional produced water disposal. Previous efforts have typically left one of the participants bearing a higher cost.

“I’m a big believer in that everyone has to win. So, the financial model had to be fair and stay inside the current economic parameters. Encore Green is an agriculture company and our goal has always been to be good stewards of our water. Water is vital to crops, stock, and many other beneficial uses. Now, we can take the billions of barrels of water that we are essentially just throwing away or injecting into the ground and turn them into beneficial-use,” says Marvin Nash.

Encore Green has worked the past year to bring all the parties together for this proof of concept test. Encore Green insists that the victory is, however, not only a technology victory, but rather it’s a victory in methodology.

“There’s a few unique things which we did that simply hadn’t been tried before,” says Encore Green General Manager, Marvin Nash. “We had to develop methods to match the soil DNA with the water DNA to know the right specs to clean the water. We had to find the right partners and we had to get a permit for this. It took much longer than we thought, but we simply stayed with it until we were done.”

“We partnered together the water and soil scientists, engineers, the landowner, the oil company, the cleaning technology company, and then worked with state legislators, the governor’s office, the federal and state permitting groups and all of that brought us to this point of success today. The key is not any one of those groups. The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. And working together is the only way we are going to solve the water crisis we have.”

Encore Green is open to conversations with citizens concerned about water, the energy industry, ranchers, famers, or local municipalities. To speak with Encore Green, LLC, visit EncoreGreenLLC.com or call 818.470.0285.

Produced water stats: http://www.producedwatersociety.com/produced-water-101/