Let’s start thinking about water!

Alfalfa lightly salted with produced water

Texas (and New Mexico, among others) produces a lot of, well, produced water. This is water that comes up from oil fields when oil is produced. So much water comes up that some oil producers joke that they are actually water companies, not oil companies. However, what to do about that water is no joking matter. Currently, much of it is deep-well injected, and that is causing earthquakes across the Permian Basin (and other parts of the state), threatening the industry. One idea is to treat this water and use it for something else. One potential something else is growing crops.

Over nine months in a West Texas greenhouse, Senanayake and espousers irrigated alfalfa and other plants with treated produced water containing 500, 1,000, and 1,500 ppm of total dissolved solids (1,000 or lower is considered fresh). The results? Like Goldilocks, they found that the middle bowl was just right: the 1000 ppm treatment produced the best plant growth, the healthiest soil, and the happiest microbes. Lower salinity was fine but underwhelming, while 1500 ppm was less than ideal. Clay soils (dubbed “Cowboy” [I am not joking…]) tended to hang onto ions like a jealous ex, while sandy loams (“Whiskers” [still not joking…]) let them slip through faster than a West Texas rainstorm on sand. The 1,000 ppm hit the sweet spot, balancing nutrients, boosting alfalfa protein content, and improving digestibility, all while avoiding the microbial melodrama that came with higher salt content.

The study’s microbial analyses revealed that bacteria mostly shrugged at moderate salinity, while fungi were a bit more dramatic with some thriving while others packed up their spores and left. Still, under the right conditions, even these microbes played nice. In short, with proper management, treated produced water can help grow decent hay in the desert without turning the soil into a salt lick. A win for sustainability and for cows that prefer their alfalfa only lightly salted.

Edwards water market analysis

Fei and friends dive deep into the economics of water in South Central Texas, where aquifers are as famous as brisket and just as contested. Their mission? To figure out why a gallon of water is worth pocket change to farmers but practically liquid gold to cities and oilfields.

Using data from the Edwards Aquifer, the authors track leases and sales of water rights between 2005 and 2021. They find that agricultural water rents for mere pennies per cubic meter while municipalities and fracking operations are willing to shell out several dollars or more. It’s a tale of two price tags: the farmer’s dollar menu versus the city’s five-star tasting flight. The study explains that these lopsided values don’t mean anyone’s crazy; they’re the logical product of a regulatory maze, a drought-prone climate, and the simple fact that it’s easier to move cattle than water. Edwards Aquifer trading rules have kept markets from flowing as freely as the water itself. By comparing sectors from agriculture to power generation, the authors found that municipalities and frackers sit atop the water-value leaderboard, with power plants paying dearly for every drop saved through cooling retrofits (although I’m not aware of Edwards water being used for fracking since Edwards water cannot be transported out of the Authority’s boundaries). Agriculture, meanwhile, stays at the bottom, partly to keep rural economies alive and endangered species waterful.

The verdict? Water trading could make Texas more efficient, but only if rules loosen, pipes lengthen, and everyone agrees that aquifers aren’t bottomless. Until then, water in South Central Texas remains a precious commodity, especially if you’re thirsty and broke.

Thirsty cows

If cows could read scientific journals, this article would be their equivalent of The Wall Street Journal. In this paper, Congio and calves tested 72 ponds across 18 ranches to find out if the local watering holes are more spa-day luxury or a “don’t drink that, Bessie!” hazard.

The study, which sampled ponds during the dry spell of October–November 2023, found that most ponds were in good condition: clear, refreshing, and chemically boring in the best possible way. However, a few got “extra” with their ingredients. About 7% of ponds had pH levels outside the safe range, 18% packed a little too much potassium, and 15% over-shared their manganese. One rogue pond even contained a cadmium concentration so high (37.4 ppm) that it single-hoofedly skewed the average, proving that outliers aren’t just for statistics lectures. The microbial gossip wasn’t great either: E. coli popped up in more than half the samples, and total coliform bacteria were basically RSVP’d to 96% of ponds, with 39% over the recommended limit. So while the chemistry was mostly acceptable, the biology was a bit too lively. Using principal component analysis and Spearman correlations (fancy math for “who hangs out with whom”), the researchers found that minerals like sodium, calcium, and chloride tend to travel in packs, while metals like cobalt, nickel, and lead prefer the company of lower pH.

The takeaway? Most ponds are safe for livestock, but fencing, alternate troughs, or rotation can help avoid health hiccups when pond water gets funky. Ranchers might not have to install water filters for their herds, but regular testing is smart, especially as droughts make pond water quality as unpredictable as Texas weather.