A move in the Oklahoma legislature to encourage more industrial use of the state’s oil and gas wastewater for development into certain minerals won approval this week in the Oklahoma House Energy Committee.
Known as the Oklahoma Brine Development Act, SB1930, by Rep. Anthony Moore and Sen. Grant Green was approved on a vote of 11-0 after already winning approval in the State Senate on a vote of 45-0.
Rep. Moore says final work on the two separate bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, remains ongoing, “where we’re still working through this with both sides, trying to make sure that we do everything we can to get all concerns adjusted.”
He said there remains a possibility it could be amended.
“The concerns are that right now, there are some in the oil and gas industry that are already taking wastewater and removing iodine, lithium, or other constituent parts from that wastewater,” explained Moore.
Iodine and its removal from the wastewater has been the key target of the bill.
“We want to make sure that we are cognizant of the fact that we don’t want to disrupt what they’re doing, but we also have those in the iodine industry that are not able to do some of the similar things because of the OCC rules and the way that those are regulated and guidelines.”
Rep. Moore said the bill is really an attempt to increase the iodine industry and do so without negatively affecting those already in the space form the oil and gas operator side.
Removal of iodine from the produced water from oil and gas wells is considered critical for protecting human health, preventing the formation of toxic disinfection byproducts and enabling the recovery of valuable industrial resources. Known for its strong antimicrobial properties, iodine is used across a range of industrial applications, from cooling towers to wastewater treatment systems and other critical industrial processes that demand microbial stability.