Glossary:

Brine:
Water containing in excess of 10,000 Total Dissolved Solids is called brine, or simply salt water.

Fracture-stimulation:
After a well is drilled into a reservoir rock that contains oil, natural gas, and water, every effort is made to maximize the production of oil and gas. One way to improve or maximize the flow of fluids to the well is to connect many pre-existing fractures and flow pathways in the reservoir rock with a larger fracture. This larger, man-made fracture starts at the well and extends out into the reservoir rock for as much as several hundred feet. The man-made or hydraulic fracture is formed when a fluid is pumped down the well at high pressures for short periods of time (hours). The high pressure fluid (usually water with some specialty high viscosity fluid additives) exceeds the rock strength and opens a fracture in the rock. A propping agent is pumped into the fractures to keep them from closing when the pumping pressure is released. The high viscosity fluid becomes a lower viscosity fluid after a short period of time. Both the injected water and the now low viscosity fluids travel back through the man-made fracture to the well and up to the surface.

Hazardous wastes:
Hazardous wastes are by-products of society that can pose a substantial or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly managed. A hazardous waste exhibits at least one of four characteristics: ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, or toxicity; or appears on special EPA lists. (40 CFR Part 161).

Hydrocarbons:
The principal compounds of oil and natural gas, hydrocarbons are chemical compounds that consist entirely of carbon and hydrogen. Liquid hydrocarbons are those chemical compounds that exist at a liquid state at standard temperature and pressure.

Municipal wastes:
Liquid wastes originating from a community; including households and commercial establishments.

Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs):
EPA has found PCBs to potentially cause negative health effects resulting from exposures at levels above the MCL including: hearing and vision problems; spasms; effects similar to acute poisonings; irritation of nose, throat and gastrointestinal tracts; changes in liver function. There is some evidence that PCBs may have the potential to cause cancer from a lifetime exposure at levels above the MCL.

EPA banned most uses of PCBs in 1979. PCBs are currently released to the environment from landfills containing PCB waste materials and products, incineration of municipal refuse and sewage sludge, and improper (or illegal) disposal of PCB materials, such as waste transformer fluid, to open areas.

Salinity:
Water contains dissolved minerals, especially salt. The salinity of water is expressed as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), measured as parts per million (ppm) or the equivalent milligrams per liter (mg/L).

Tectonic Processes:
The term "tectonic processes" refers to the theory of plate tectonics. Plate tectonics tells us the Earth's rigid outer shell (lithosphere) is broken into a mosaic of oceanic and continental plates which can slide over the plastic aesthenosphere, which is the uppermost layer of the mantle. The plates are in constant motion. Where they interact, along their margins, important geological processes take place, such as the formation of mountain belts, earthquakes, and volcanoes.