Railroad Commissioner Christian Urges Fast Track for Reusing Treated Oilfield Water

Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian is pressing Texas lawmakers and regulators to clear the way for industry to reuse treated produced water, the salty water that comes up with oil and gas, for jobs like cooling data centers.

“Texas desperately needs more water, and our oil and gas industry sits on an ocean of it,” Christian said in a statement Thursday. He added, “We need clear, predictable rules that enable data centers and private industry to put this resource to work safely, efficiently and economically. If gaps in regulatory authority remain, let’s close them this legislative session.”

How much water

The Permian Basin disposes of more than 20 million barrels of produced water a day, roughly 1 billion gallons, according to an April 2026 report from the Texas Produced Water Consortium at Texas Tech University, which Christian cited.

The consortium analyzed 60 samples from five pilot treatment projects run in 2024 and 2025. The pilot systems removed more than 99 percent of the salinity, organics and radioactivity, the report found, cutting average salinity from about 120,000 milligrams per liter to 317. After a final polishing step, 75 of the 76 comparable measurements met the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s drinking water limits, and 85 of 95 toxicity tests on undiluted samples showed no toxicity.

The report calls the results “promising” and notes that larger treatment plants under construction will add further steps to remove trace organics, metals and toxicity. It also notes that the state environmental agency had not yet released draft permits for discharging treated water to streams or applying it to land.

Christian also pointed to research at the University of Texas at Austin on treating produced water for industrial uses that do not need drinking-water quality.

Who decides

“Treated produced water reuse has faced fierce opposition from the get-go, before the technology even had a chance to prove its worth,” Christian said. “Texas just needs big brother government to get out of the way.”

The water, the oil and the data centers are all in Texas, and so are the agencies that write the rules. The Legislature that meets in January can decide how fast that water goes to work.