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Environment Texas, an Austin-based environmental group, urged the state Legislature to pass bills requiring that water be reused after fracking and limiting the amount of fresh water that can be used.

“There are a lot of problems with fracking, and so we want to minimize the damage from fracking, including by requiring recycling,” Luke Metzger, the group’s director, said in an interview.

Costs to haul fresh water for fracking has increased as the drought forces drillers to buy from more distant suppliers, according to Dave Burnett, director of technology at the Energy Research Institute of Texas A&M University in College Station. More companies are recycling wastewater and using brackish water not suitable for drinking.

“The use of fresh groundwater in south Texas has dropped by 50 percent in the last 12 months,” Burnett said in an interview.