Gas drilling companies are working to figure out better ways to recycle and reuse water in the drilling process that may make evaporation pits “a thing of the past,” an industry spokesman said Thursday. Doug Dennison, environmental and governmental affairs representative for the Bill Barrett Corp. spoke on water use in gas drilling at the monthly Garfield County Energy Advisory Board (EAB), held Thursday in Rifle. “Typically, 60 to 80 percent of the water used for completions is recycled and reused,” said Dennison. By recycling water for multiple wells, the company can avoid the use of fresh water for every well. “I still think there's a lot of room for improvement in reuse and treatment,” he said. Dennison said the company is using pipelines to shuttle water from one part of its well field to another, and using closed-loop systems that capture water at the drilling pad, all in an effort to cut down on the number of trucks operating on local roads and highways. Also making a presentation on the subject was Tyler Bittner, an engineer for WPX Energy. “If you lived around here, you saw the endless lines of tanker trucks going up and down the roads and highways,” said Dennison, referring to the standard operating procedures he said were used by the industry as late as 2005. Since then, he said, “a lot has changed in how we deal with water.” Dennison noted that the management of water has become “a kind of new skill set” in the gas patch. “Their job is to manage water, and ... it's a big job,” Dennison remarked.

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