I would also point out that there is an endless stream of oil-field brines and related contaminated waters available for processing should anyone want to have a

I would also point out that there is an endless stream of oil-field brines and related contaminated waters available for processing should anyone want to have a continuous source of raw material. The industry, in its never-ending quest to monetize waste products or to place the cleanup burdens on someone else (the public usually) is currently trying to get Texas to agree to allow pumping of these highly contaminated wastes into aquifers. Any time you produce oil or gas you always produce some waste water with it. Volumes will vary from well to well depending on a lot of variables unique to a field or a well. This water, or most of it, is not all water from production if I read the article correctly, a lot of it is flow-back water from the fracking process. That means it is not water that would normally be reinjected to help maintain formation pressures to allow continued production. It is water pulled from public and private potable water supplies including, lakes, aquifers, etc. This water should have been reserved for human consumption or for use in farm or ranch maintenance. T Boone Pickens set in motion the whole idea of gathering rights to large volumes of water and selling it to users far from the source. This really set the stage for the massive over-use of public water in fraacking in the Permian Basin and other related areas that saw a large fracking boom. The potable water is gone now, polluted by the O&G industry, and now they want to be able to just put it back where they found it and let God sort out the contaminants. Disgusting really. But, it sounds like a great opportunity for someone operating in the water treatment space to test and validate options for wastewater treatment and for recovering chemical and mineral contaminants from non-potable water.