In the early days of the shale-gas boom that is now at full throttle around the U.S. and the globe, speculators rushed into hydrofracking with high hopes, often with little attention to how much water would be needed or the best practices for managing the water when they were done with the wells. You might say it was a little like the wild, wild West. "Early on, there was little concern and not a lot of regulation about how water was sourced" and how flowback was handled, says one industry insider, who asked not to be identified due to the nature of his comments. "Originally, there were probably a lot of mistakes made."