Land Application of Produced Water - RPN 2026-006-309-OW

Comment From: Sarah Sudheer

6/21/26 @ 12:00 AM

Dear Gwen Ricco, I am writing to formally submit my comments on Rule Project Number 2026-006-309-OW regarding the proposed rulemaking on the land application of treated produced water. This rulemaking is critical to ensuring that robust standards ar...↓e in place to protect public health and the environment. Because Texas law limits liability for operators that meet the rules the TCEQ sets, it is vital these rules be sufficient to protect our health and create a paper trail that proves companies meet this high bar. Our livelihood counts on clean water. Our communities count on it to thrive–to attract investment and to keep our children healthy as they grow. Without clean water, we can’t grow our crops or feed the livestock we take to market. It is vital that our water and soils remain safe — and that the public can trust they are safe. The draft rules, as currently written, do not provide a sufficient regulatory framework to protect Texas communities and businesses. And 30 days is insufficient time to prepare comprehensive comments to point out all deficiencies–let alone review any technical basis that exists. As such, I request that the TCEQ extend the public comment period by 30 days to allow a more comprehensive analysis. This rule will affect communities across this state, especially those with significant oil and gas production. A single public hearing in Austin and virtually is insufficient to hear from those communities. Please schedule public hearings in impacted communities across the Permian Basin, the Eagle Ford Shale, and the East Texas Basin. To protect Texas communities, our agricultural industries, and environment, the final TCEQ rule must include: — Permitting Transparency: A formal permitting process that includes ample public notice and a robust protest system for affected communities. — Basic Design Safeguards: Include common-sense requirements standard in municipal treatment. This includes stricter setback distances, mandatory public testing disclosure, and a rigorous paper trail to ensure tracking and accountability throughout the supply chain. — Uniform Minimum Standards: Clear, mandatory health-protective limits based on type of land application and geography instead of flexible, case-by-case regulatory discretion. — Strict Contaminant Limits: Explicit caps on known toxins, including heavy metals, PFAS, and radionuclides, ensuring water is fully treated to safe standards. — Continuous 24/7 Testing: Mandatory, around-the-clock monitoring to ensure compliance at all times, not just rare scheduled checks. — Independent Audits: Mandatory third-party testing to verify industry self-reporting. — Open Data Access: Full public access to testing data—modeled after municipal water quality testing requirements—with no "proprietary information" loopholes used to hide chemical data. — Bioaccumulation Tracking: Required baseline soil and crop testing to track and intercept toxic buildup in our food chain. The TCEQ must ensure that these rules are based on rigorous, independent science rather than limited industry test data. As such, this rulemaking is premature because the science does not exist; therefore, the barriers to obtaining a permit should be high, and the required testing for any permits granted should ensure they help fill all scientific gaps. Please update the docket to reflect my request for an extended comment period and stronger rule enforcement. Please protect our communities.

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Comment From: Edward Kern

6/20/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: Betty-Sue Dunn

6/18/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: Steven Smith

6/18/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: Jessica Clay

6/18/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: Neal Spackman

6/17/26 @ 11:21 AM

I submit this comment in support of TCEQ's rulemaking to establish a permitting pathway for produced water reuse in Texas, and urges the Commission to adopt two principles essential to the rule's success: prioritizing technologies with proven field ...↓performance, and facilitating appropriate technology transfer from solutions developed and validated outside the United States.

Texas is not the first jurisdiction to confront the challenge of large-scale produced water management. In the Sultanate of Oman, SusTeco operates an integrated biological treatment system currently processing some 300,000 barrels of produced water per day, through a proprietary constructed wetland system. In 4 years that system of constructed saline wetlands has become a stopover point for multiple species of migratory birds — an outcome that speaks to the volume of water being treated and to the beneficial ecological impact that can happen when we treat this waste product as a resource. The conditions SusTeco faces in Oman are similar to those in the Permian and Delaware basins–arid and water-scarce.

What distinguishes SusTeco's approach is what it does not require. Its systems provide disposal without the use of deep well injection, and reuse without desalination, by using hypersaline water to grow constructed wetlands that both process the contaminants within produced water, and convert this wastewater into a productive ecological asset. For Texas regulators writing rules today, this matters for two reasons. First, the economic feasibility of produced water reuse at Permian Basin scale will be determined largely by whether the treatment pathway requires desalination or not. If rules are written in ways that effectively mandate full desalination as a precondition for reuse permits, the economics will remain prohibitive for most operators and volumes. Second, if the rule creates a pathway only for technologies domestically familiar to regulators, it will systematically exclude operationally validated solutions available — many of which were developed precisely because other oil-producing nations have already faced this problem at scale.
I urge TCEQ to: (1) define reuse standards by outcomes rather than by treatment technology or process, allowing equivalent results through multiple pathways; (2) explicitly provide that treatment technologies demonstrated at commercial scale in other jurisdictions qualify for consideration under Texas permits, subject to appropriate technical review; and (3) include provisions that reduce permitting friction for technology transfer, recognizing that Texas stands to benefit from a global body of operational experience that should not require complete domestic re-demonstration before being eligible for permitting. In short, the Permian Basin's produced water challenge is too large and too urgent for Texas to limit itself to solutions it has already seen, or that only fit conventional wisdom.

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Comment From: John Reese

6/17/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: Wayne Coltrane

6/17/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: Wayne Coltrane

6/17/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: Leslie Dare

6/17/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: JENNIFER GREEN

6/17/26 @ 12:00 AM

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Comment From: Alicia Thomas

6/16/26 @ 11:57 PM

Jun 16, 2026

Office of Legal Services
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)
P.O. Box 13087, Austin, Texas 78711-3087

RE: Public Comment: TCEQ Rule Project No. 2026-006-309-OW

Healthy Gulf submits these comments on Rule Project Number 2...↓

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