Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (i.e., fracking) have revolutionized hydrocarbon extraction from gas shale and tight geologic formations. In excess of five million gallons of water can be used to frack a single horizontal well with significant water returning to the surface as flowback and produced water. This returned water has poor quality. While recycling and reuse of waste water are actively pursued as preferred alternatives, deep-well injection remains the most common means to dispose of flowback and produced water. Unsurprisingly, disposal of waste fluids poses the greatest threat to groundwater when fracking a well. The technology used to dispose fluid by deep-well injection has remained the same for decades and has not been updated to reflect either the significant increase in the volume of liquid waste or from improved understanding of its impact on the environment. This presentation examines how environmental threats from deep-well injection can be mitigated by improved conceptualization of both deep-well injection and the real-world response of the physical system to high-volume, long-term injection.