Perry: Produced water desalination is the future of water supply in Texas - KCBD

State Sen. Charles Perry says Texas doesn't need to find new water, it needs to clean the water it already has.

Perry described "produced water," a byproduct of oil and gas drilling, as a major piece of the state's long-term water supply answer. He said 10,000 barrels of that water, once injected back underground, can instead be run through a desalination plant and converted into something usable. For West Texas, where the Permian Basin sits on enormous volumes of drilling byproduct, that's not a small number.

"That is the future of water supply and beneficial use for agriculture in the Permian, because that's where that supply exists," Perry said. He was clear that produced water desalination is one piece of the solution, not the whole answer, but the direction he's pointing is a significant shift from how Texas has traditionally approached water scarcity.

For people in Lubbock, this matters. The South Plains has watched water tables drop and drought cycles tighten for years. A path that turns an oil field waste product into irrigation water would reshape what's possible for agriculture across the region, without requiring new reservoirs or sources.

Texas sits on some of the most active oil and gas production in the country, which means the raw material for this approach is already being pulled out of the ground every day.