Water from natural gas wellsites is either trucked or piped to saltwater injection wells (SWD) for disposal. Water trucks can transport between 3,000 and 5,000 gallons of water per load, depending on the size of the vehicle. Truck traffic, like the amount of water produced from wells, drops significantly in a relatively short amount of time.
After three months of production, less than one truck per day per well is needed to carry water to a SWD well and that number continues to decline over the life of a well.
The pipelines used to transport produced water are made of corrosion-resistant polyethylene and are nearly an inch thick. Pipeline segments are fused together to maximize leak protection, making the seams the strongest portion of the pipe. Sensors are installed at no less than every mile to monitor the flow of water through the pipeline, while state-of-the-art Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) controls can shut down the pipeline flow immediately from a remote location, should a change in flow be detected.