| As the oil and gas industry expands in the United States, managing the high volume waste streams generated during development and production becomes increasingly crucial to the preservation of ecosystem and human health. Accurate characterization is essential to ensure proper treatment and disposal. Therefore, a collaborative inter-laboratory comparison was performed using methods applied to oil and gas development and production wastewaters. Four samples were analyzed using five different methods. The samples included raw fracturing flowback, treated fracturing flowback, raw produced water, and treated produced water. The methods used to characterize these waters were EPA Method 300.0, EPA Method 200.7, EPA Method 200.8, SW 846 Method 6010C, and SW 846 Method 8015B. The mean, standard deviation, and relative standard deviation of the results from this inter-laboratory comparison were compared to the mean, standard deviation, and relative standard deviation found in each of the EPA methods validation data. This comparison elucidated the variation resulting from the application of the EPA methods to the oil and gas development and production wastewater matrices. |
