It’s Kind of Like an Empty Milk Jug

By-product water is kind of like an empty milk jug. Here’s what we mean.

In many states, especially in suburbs and cities, you get colored-coded trash cans provided by the city. Often, black is regular trash, green is the grass trimming, brown is for if you have horses (do we have to give the details?), and then there’s the blue can.

The blue can is for recycling. You walk out of your house and you have that empty, plastic milk jug to throw away. Which can do you put it in?

Now, you can throw it in the black trash can and it ends up in the landfill. Or you can put it in the blue can and somebody, somewhere turns it back into another plastic jug, ready for milk.

Same with by-product water. Toss it into the black can and inject it back in the ground or let it evaporate in ponds. Or, put it in the blue can and that somebody, somewhere can turn it into water that you can water crops, manage soil, raise herds, or use it for other conservation applications.

So, you see, the choice is right before us. Are we going to keep throwing away the by-product water? Or recycle it into something beneficial-use?

The solution is ready. Which will you choose?

#BeneficialUseWater #EncoreGreen #Water

Cancel the Crusades. We Found the West’s Holy Grail

Not THAT Holy Grail. 

No, we’ve found the thing that Buffalo Bill, Brigham Young, Francis Newlands, and even Teddy Roosevelt tried to find out here in the West: Water.

You think your State has water? Maybe ask them. Most States are facing aquifers that are in critical danger now OR have some pretty scary projections about the coming few years. 

But the Beneficial-Use Water Alliance has discovered water – the thing that turns our semi-arid land into farms, ranches, towns and cities. And, turns out, we had the water along. It’s the water gushing out of the oil wells at a pretty brisk pace. 

The only trouble is, that water is by-product water and it needs processing before it can be used for anything beneficial. To clean it, it has to get trucked to an expensive facility, so, the easiest thing to do is inject it back into the land or let it evaporate. Sure, you could clean it, but it will cost a zillion or so to do that. 

Until now.

Beneficial-Use Water Alliance, working with Encore Green, has a new methodology to turn this by-product water into beneficial-use for ag and other conservation applications – inside an economic model that doesn’t cost more. And could cost less.

If we aren’t having to use the aquifer water for ag, what do we end up with – the Holy Grail of any dry climate: bountiful water in the aquifer. 

We just have to get all the stakeholders to the Round Table and talk. Let’s start with you, visit us at BeneficialUseWaterAlliance.com/contact

#beneficialusewater #BUWA  #WATER 

Who's Fault Is It Anyway?

Man, oh man, let’s not forget about the whole issue of liability for the buy-product water that comes out of the oil wells. 

Our whole society is ridiculously litigious and many seem to have a “lie-ability” when it comes their skill to get money from someone without warrant. (See what we did there with “liability”?)

But, let’s ask this question – which has more risk: Putting by-product water into the ground and spinning the roulette as to what will happen. Or, making it beneficial-use for ag and other conservation applications where, as part of the workflow, the water is carefully monitored.

Injection you have all sorts of weak links like trucking, earthquakes, pipeline issues, and no one is monitoring that water from a scientific standpoint to see what it’s going to do in the ground.

The reality is that many days, you are only a few steps away from a class action suit. 

But, turning it into beneficial-use establishes a process where the water is monitored to avoid any problems. 

Come on over to the beneficial-use water side. Because, we figure you have other things to do with your money than pay insurance premiums.

Farmer Roger's Neighborhood

Mr. Oil Industry, I’m your ag neighbor. I live all around that oil well of yours. A little wheat over here. Alfalfa over there. Those cows? That’s me, too.

I know that a lot of folks like to toss rocks at you, but I always stand up for my neighbor because I think we all are better off buying gasoline from you instead Iran or Russia. Nothing personal, but they haven’t always good neighbors to us. 

I see that you work hard at this business of getting oil to come out of the ground. I hear the large, noisy rigs, trucks, and shouts of the workers. I see the regulators look over your shoulder, doing their job, but maybe making it tough to do yours. 

I see the placards about how you’re evil. I’ve never been sure if they are all mad at you about the environment or just mad at you for making money. But, I’m just an ag neighbor, trying to get some food grown.

Here’s my request. I also see barrels and barrels of gunky water coming out of that well. Last year in Wyoming, 71 billion gallons of that mire was injected or evaporated.

Could I have it instead? 

I’d work with some other ag neighbors of mine who can clean it up for my crops, my soil, and my herds. You can even use it for fracking the next well, too. You don’t use a lot of it for that.

Your by-product water could become beneficial-use water. Maybe they wouldn’t throw quite so many rocks at you, if you do. It won’t cost you more than you’re paying to inject or evaporate. And then, the water in your kitchen sink won’t run out because the aquifer isn’t being drained for ag.

I’m just trying to be neighborly. And, to quote our hero, Mr. Rogers, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

#BeneficialUseWater  # Water

Want to be neighborly? Director@BeneficialUseWaterAlliance.com

Meet The World’s First Agricultural Midstream Company

Most of us who live near oil wells know the terms upstream, midstream, and downstream. The more “down” the stream, the closer to the end user who is filling their gas tank. The more “up” the stream, the closer to the exploration and drilling for oil.

In the middle, the midstream, are where the moving of the oil happens. They’re the logistics folks who make things move from point A to point B with great efficiency.

So, today, we’re declaring ourselves to be the world’s
 first “Agricultural Mid-Stream Company.”

“What was that again?” you say.

When we say “we,” we are talking about two separate companies that do different things. Together, the two companies (with the ranchers, farmers, oil companies, and state government), take the billions of barrels of by-product (i.e. unusable) water from the oil well and turn it into beneficial-use (i.e. usable) water for ag and other applications.

•    The Beneficial-Use Water Alliance is the matchmaker, seeking to pull all the stakeholders together and work out a customized plan for each land parcel where everyone wins. Win-Win-Win-Win-Win has been our mantra since the beginning.

•    Encore Green, LLC does hands-on logistics of cleaning it and then working with the stakeholders for ag or other applications.

See, we’re like the midstream oil companies in function.

Come talk to us. We won’t be able to solve any real headaches – for that we suggest Tylenol. But, we can solve your headache of what you do about having too much by-product water or not having enough good water for your crops, herds, or municipalities.

#beneficialusewater #water

What the Rancher Knows That You Don't

From the very beginning, we formed our company as an agriculture company and not as an energy company, even though some may see us merely as by-product water cleaners. We identified ourselves as ag because we knew that the end result of our efforts would be to serve the ag community by providing water for the land and animals. But the important ag component to the solution came from the fact that we think like a farmer and rancher.

Here’s what we mean.

The farmers and ranchers have to work hard and scrape by to earn a living. It’s a long tradition. Their great (x 5 or 6 times great) grandfathers were probably raising crops and animals just to feed their own families. 

Now, many farms and ranches are massive and technology turns out to be better at predicting a good crop than grandpa’s arthritic knee. But, the good news is that the ag industry still carries that same mentality of how you conduct an ag business:

You don’t throw anything away.

Put it in economic terms, the process of production will always result in by-product items that can be monetized. If you raise a chicken, you’re primarily after the eggs or the dark and white meat. But secondarily, you can sell the beaks, the feet, the feathers, and even what the chicken drops all over your land. That’s because you have thin margins and you have to find a way to get every penny out of that chicken that you can. 

So, if farmers or ranchers ran the oil companies, they would have NEVER thought about the water coming from the well as being something to ignore and pay millions of dollars to dispose of. Instead, a rancher would have inherently figured out that the wells are sitting next to ag land and then would have figured out a way to make it beneficial-use water.

But, the oil industry, even with its boom or bust mentality, is still a high margin business with plenty of cash. There is no oil executive (who make the decisions) sitting behind the tinted windows in their skyscraper who is watching the weekly reports to find out if he can buy groceries this week. He or she might be trying to manage their stock portfolio, but not their existence. 

You see, you think of other option when you are desperate. Necessity being the mother of invention, as we know. 

So, let’s combine our worlds. The oil industry needs to embrace a new, better (but not more expensive) way to deal with the billions of gallons of water that is simply thrown away each year. So, let’s change. Together, we can.

Meanwhile, we’re going to go have our chicken feet snack.

Change a Name. Change the Future

With apologies to the Bard who said, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” -- it’s just not true. Maybe it’s true for the conflicting families of Romeo and Juliet, but not for the often conflicting Oil Industry and Ag Industry. What we call a thing is important because the name reflects the identity.

What does this have to do with produced water from oil wells? Everything.

A little while ago, we bumped into a major oil company lobbyist who hated, really hated, our idea of turning oil well by-product water into beneficial-use for ag and other applications, instead of injection or disposal. He said disposing of water is how it’s been done for 35 years and if we tried it, he’d take us all the way to the Supreme Court. He said they may lose, but we’d be broke. We hope he doesn’t also handle Public Relations for them. 

Now, yes, we’ve been disposing of water for 35 years. That started in 1983 and we’ve all made some changes since then, right? Why not change what we do with the water from an oil well?

We just politely walked away from that lobbyist because maybe he had a bad day (or forgot his medication) and we knew that we have the future and it’s all about what we call this water.

It’s not really ‘produced water.’ The oil company didn’t invest millions of dollars to have gunky water come out of the ground. No, they are working to get oil out of the ground and keep our country moving and safe from foreign trade wars on oil. It’s a good thing. But this water is simply ‘by-product water.’ It’s the unintended consequence of drilling for oil. 

This by-product water with a simple change of name and intention can become beneficial-use water. It can benefit the next frac, stop soil erosion, water crops, and keep herds thriving. And, it can be done inside the same economic model of how much it costs an oil company to dispose of that water with ponds or injection. It will only take the oil industry deciding to improve how things are done.

So, what’s in a name? Everything. Produced/by-product water can change its name and character by becoming beneficial-use. Then, the water is not a headache, but provides health to the land and all the thing that grow on it.

Change a name. Change the future.  #BeneficialUseWater

Hello. My Name is Produced Water and I’m a …

Produced water is often treated like that cousin you have who is an alcoholic. He’s part of your family, but you don’t really want to talk about him.

And, even when he gets sober, you still don’t trust him.

Well, produced water is kind of everybody’s cousin, if you live where the E&Ps work. And no matter what is said, you just don’t trust produced water. 

But BUWA has a twelve-step program of sorts for you. Okay, we’re kind of kidding, but not completely:

1. We admit that we have to do something about produced water.

2. We know we need to count on something higher than ourselves to do it (hint: it’s not the government or the E&P’s)

3. We have to engage with someone like BUWA to pull the pieces and technology together.

4. We have to do a searching inventory of where we live, the DNA of our soil, the DNA of the water, proximity to rigs, and who owns all the pieces of land, rights, and machinery.

5. BUWA can facilitate testing the soil and intersect the results with your beneficial-use needs.  

6. Then, we’ll bring all the parties together to have a party—one where everybody ends up better than they were.

7.Then, our cousin, produced water flows out, approximately 3 barrels for every 1 barrel of oil.

8. The water is cleaned with proprietary technology and the beneficial-use process begins.

9. The water is tested to make sure it’s cleaned to match the needs from step 5.

10. The water is now no longer produced water. It’s sobered up. It’s now called beneficial-use water.

11. The beneficial-use water is put on crops or drunk by cows (see how we work in the drinking analogy?). And with beneficial-water put to those uses, the pressure is relieved from the municipalities.

12. The Landowners win. The E&P’s win. The Ranchers and Farmers win. The municipalities win. The government wins.

But first you have to admit you have a problem with produced water. Give us a call. We’ll turn your cousin, produced water, around.

Will We See You in Riverton Next Week?

The Beneficial-Use Water Alliance is exhibiting, sponsoring, and presenting at the Wyoming Stock Growers Association in Riverton next week.

Whether you are a rancher or a landowner or just want to talk about increasing revenue and increasing your water to use for ag or livestock, visit our booth or give us a call, 818.470.0285.

Taking It for Granted

By the time you’re reading this today, you have more than likely mindlessly used a few gallons of water. You took a shower (at least we hope so), you brushed your teeth, you brewed some coffee, you drank some water, you boiled some food, you then froze it for your iced tea, and probably did a few more things.

At any of those times when you turned the faucet, did you think, “I wonder if there will be water?” No, you didn’t. And if no water came out of the tap, your first thought would probably be, “I paid the bill, right?”

We take water for granted and that’s okay to do. We have many other things to think about. However, because we take it for granted doesn’t make it any less vital. 

As people that have an opinion or two on what happens to ourselves and our family, we do need to think about water a bit more than we do. 

The Beneficial-Use Water Alliance is working with farmers, ranchers, government, and E&Ps to stop evaporating water or injecting it into the ground. We can actually USE that produced water for crops or herds. 

Here's where your faucet comes in: If we’re using cleaned produced water for those things, then the municipalities won’t feel the pressure to make sure your tap has water. But it’s going to take some intentionality on our part.

If the stakeholders that are involved in owning land, drilling for oil, raising cattle, or growing crops can come together and put the already established systems in place, then we can put our water to good use.

And then, we can go back to mindlessly turning on the tap. Because we don’t want to discover one day that we took water for granted for too long.