There are a variety of ways to contain or dispose of potentially hazardous brines that don’t involve brine ponds—but many of these methods are more costly or could prove hazardous to the environment. Some, for instance, believe that brines can be disposed of as surface water discharge. This is particularly true of smaller operations that have a relatively non-contaminated brine. However, this requires EPA approval—and can still prove damaging to the environment. Similarly, deep well injection is another method that requires EPA permits, and deep wells will need constant monitoring to ensure that the brine does not eventually seep out to contaminate the local water table. Sewage system discharge is a potential method, but even relatively small amounts of brine can rapidly overwhelm a municipal water treatment system.
Where desalination is concerned, some desalination plants return concentrated brine back to the ocean. This requires a coastal location, and because the heavy concentrated brine sinks to the bottom of the ocean, it can prove highly toxic to delicate seafloor ecosystems. Similarly, where soil can be treated with brine, salt can leave deposits that prove harmful to the ecosystem over time. There are also processes like reverse osmosis to treat brine, or storage tanks to contain it. Both of these can prove extremely costly. By comparison to these methods, brine ponds for evaporation are a relatively safe and effective way to contain and dispose of potentially toxic brines—plus harvest the solids that that those brines contain.
