A 21st-century Texas variation of the old saw "whiskey's for drinkin', water's for fightin' about" might go something like this: "Gas is for gettin' rich, water's for fightin' about."

With hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, igniting a natural gas boom in Texas and elsewhere, we're only now paying sufficient attention to the massive amounts of water the drilling process requires. With some 30 Texas communities in danger of going dry before the end of the year, it's becoming more difficult to ignore the fact that the fracking boom, however welcome, comes at a high cost. It is a powerful drain on local water supplies.

The people of Barnhart, a tiny West Texas community near San Angelo, are certainly paying attention. Thanks to fracking's outsized water demands, the town well has gone dry. The town's water crisis brings to mind another old saw: "The prospect of being hanged focuses the mind wonderfully."

In Barnhart, where a severe and lingering drought already had put a strain on the water supply, minds are focused these days, though not so wonderfully.

A recent story in the Guardian noted that ranchers have had to dump their herds, farmers have lost their crops and residents are being forced to live with water rationing. In addition, the area aquifer is being strained.

Still, the oil industry continues to demand water, and those with water on their land are still willing to sell it.

Texas shale producers used about 25 billion gallons of water last year, and with more and more drilling in the Eagle Ford Formation, that figure will continue to grow. In some West Texas and South Texas counties - almost invariably drought-stricken counties - fracking accounts for 10 to 25 percent of water use and is projected to pass 50 percent in the future. Every month, oil and gas companies dispose of 290 million barrels of wastewater from fracking. That's the equivalent of 18,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, Luke Metzger of Environment Texas points out. That's water that can never be used again - in a drought-debilitated state, no less.

At least partial solutions are possible, including mandatory recycling, saline or brackish water use and waterless fracking, but Texas lawmakers, for the most part, have allowed the industry to have its way. Although they approved funding for a Texas water plan, setting up a statewide vote this year, bills during the past session that would have required oil and gas companies to recycle water used in fracking never made it out of committee because of industry opposition.

The Legislature did pass a bill that encourages recycling, but it's weak. As Metzger points out, "It's still cheaper to just dispose of frackwater waste in injection wells, so most companies don't have an incentive to recycle."

Shell and Chevron have embraced a voluntary package of drilling standards that includes recycling 90 percent of oil and gas wastewater. Other companies should be required to adhere to the same standard.

Water is indeed worth fighting about, but most of us don't quite realize that it's time to get in the ring. We can survive without the oil and gas but not without water. Ask the good people of Barnhart.