North Dakota’s oil boom is aided by a new technology, fracking. But this technology implies large amounts of wastewater. The methods of dealing with this wastewater are now an issue. Currently, North Dakota locks it into deep injection wells in the Bakken formation. With the development of membrane technologies to treat wastewater, it may be feasible to treat the wastewater and reuse it. This study uses a mathematical programming model to minimize the total cost of dealing with wastewater using three methods - deep well injection, on-site treatment, and off-site treatment. The model results show it is cost-effective to use on-site and large capacity off-site treatment to treat the 20% of the wastewater that flows back within the first 30-60 days after a well is drilled.

Deep injection wells (DIW) in Florida are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the state of Florida through the Underground Injection Control regulations contained within the Safe Drinking Water Act. Underground injection is defined as the injection of hazardous waste, nonhazardous waste, or municipal waste below the lowermost formation containing an underground source of drinking water within one-quarter mile of the wellbore. Municipalities in Florida have been using underground injection as an alternative to surface disposal of treated domestic wastewater for nearly 40 years. The research involved collecting data as of September, 2007 on all the Class I DIWs in the state of Florida and evaluating the differences between them. The analysis found regional differences in deep well practice and canonical correlation analyses concluded that depth below the USDW is the most significant factor to prevent upward migration of the injected fluid. / by Jie Gao. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.