Texas Environmental Regulators to Vote Nov. 4 on Spreading Treated Oilfield Water on Land

Texas environmental regulators will vote Nov. 4 on rules governing the spread of treated oilfield wastewater across open land — a job the Legislature took from the oil and gas regulator and handed to them.

Produced water is what comes back up a well along with the oil and gas: salty, often carrying metals and drilling chemicals, and generated in the Permian Basin faster than the industry can find places to put it. A 2025 law, Senate Bill 1145 by Sen. Brian Birdwell, transferred permitting for the land application of treated produced water from the Railroad Commission to the environmental agency — for applications filed on or after Sept. 1, 2025 — and directed it to set standards preventing pollution of surface and subsurface water. The oil and gas regulator keeps the waste side, including the solids treatment leaves behind, and the two agencies asked senators in August to draw a clearer line.

The agency proposed the rules in May, heard from the public in Austin on June 15 and closed written comment the next day. It received 617 comments. Its adoption preamble says the main siting section comes to the vote exactly as proposed. Commenters who wanted a wider buffer — one asked for a full acre between irrigation and a water supply well — were turned down, the agency reasoning that the 100-foot distance it chose already matches what it writes into permits.

That 100-foot setback from any water in the state is the one genuinely new requirement. The rest of what a permit holder must do comes from the chapter the agency wrote for industrial wastewater and is now extending to produced water: map wells within half a mile, sample groundwater before operating, test the soil at least once a year, and keep nitrogen within what the crop can take up. The published setback from a private well is 150 feet for irrigated land, though the same subsection elsewhere says 250 feet, and the section is being adopted without changes. A companion change would let treated produced water be reused under the state’s reclaimed-water rules.

The agency’s own April filing put adoption in August; it comes instead in November, as the last of 60 items. The rest is the usual mix: a judge’s recommendation on a Fort Bend County wastewater permit, a petition to create a groundwater district covering all of Houston County, San Angelo’s bid to pipe treated wastewater back upstream and use it again, and 49 enforcement orders. Kelly Keel left as executive director Oct. 1; Steven Schar has been interim since Oct. 2, and no permanent successor has been announced.

Meeting at a glance

Commissioners

• Brooke T. Paup — chairwoman; Austin; named chair January 2025; term to 2027.
• Catarina R. Gonzales — Austin; former governor’s policy adviser; term to 2029.
• Tonya R. Miller — Austin; former state public utility counsel; term to 2031.

Roster rechecked October 27 against the agency’s commissioners page, unchanged from the Dispatch’s October 14 check and in agreement with the governor’s appointment releases. The agency’s separate commission directory page is stale and was not used. Kelly Keel vacated the executive director’s post October 1, and the agency named Steven Schar interim executive director effective October 2; he is listed in that role on the agency’s October 9 organization chart. No permanent successor was found in a search of the agency’s newsroom and the governor’s releases through October 27.