Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced at the U.N. climate summit that New Mexico will invest $500 million into reusing brackish and produced water to boost green energy production while withstanding drought. Reporter for Capital & Main Jerry Redfern told KUNM that, at this point, all we know about what the program would look like are the "broad strokes."
JERRY REDFERN: Gov. Lujan Grisham wants $250 million from this upcoming legislative session that starts in January, and then another $250 million from the following legislative session. She wants that to come from severance funds. Those are taxes from mineral extraction like oil and gas production. The state would then use that money to buy desalinated water from any number of companies that set up desalination projects in the state. And then the state would sell that cleaned water to industrial end users. She mentioned chip and solar manufacturing, as well as hydrogen production to power homes and such. Truth be told, all of this sounds pretty clever. I mean, all manner of new energy and tech industries need water and New Mexico doesn't have much. This is a possibility to take waste product and make it useful.
KUNM: And why does the governor want to do this?
REFERN: I mean, foremost is what she was very clear about. New Mexico is facing a future with dramatically less freshwater because of climate change — honestly, driven by burning oil and gas. I think that is the primary reason why she's doing this. But possibly a bigger, more immediate and practical reason for this is that oil and gas production in New Mexico creates a truly colossal amount of super salty, toxic water. It really has no direct use on its own. The oilfield that gets separated from the oil, and then is reinjected underground. That's energy-intensive and very expensive to do. And we're putting so much of it back into the ground that it's led to an increase in earthquakes in the Permian Basin. So, this proposal would take that waste and turn it into a possible revenue stream. I don't want to give the impression that this proposal is only about produced water from oil and gas operations. The governor in her announcement did talk about using large deep brackish water reserves that we have here in New Mexico as well. They're naturally occurring water reserves, but essentially undrinkable saltwater stuff. And one benefit of using brackish water over produced water would be that it isn't subject to the same strict regulatory regime.
KUNM: This was just proposed. What's still unknown about this strategic water reserve program?
REDFERN: Almost everything is unknown about the program. Of course, the first thing we don't know about is the funding. The governor is going to have to get the funding approved. A positive for her on that end, she already appears to have the heads of the Senate and the House lined up in favor of this. There are also, you know, like really big practical questions that remain unanswered. Like, where would all the salt go? If you're taking all that salt out of all of that water, where are you going to put it? And how? And is that going to require new environmental regulation? And, is the state going to have to build infrastructure for this? I mean, the whole point of this is that the state is buying the water. So, where are we going to put it? How are we going to transport it, or not? Environment Secretary [James] Kenny kind of brought up I think the hope is that it just goes from the producer to the end user eventually, and the state maybe doesn't have to get its hands wet. And then, how long does this last? I mean, at what point is the state no longer supporting this industry?
KUNM: The Governor's Office has touted this as a first-of-its-kind initiative. What would you say is innovative about it?
REDFERN: What's innovative is a state government, in particular, helping out the oil and gas industry with some of its really big waste problems. You're taking a waste stream that the industry has to pay for to deal with and essentially turning into a value stream instead. I think that there's probably going to be some pushback from the environmental groups at a time when pretty much every scientific group on the planet is saying we have to stop using fossil fuels if we want to avoid, you know, the worst aspects of climate change that are coming down the pike. And I think there are going to be a lot of questions about, "Does funding this sort of thing actually just encourage oil and gas to keep producing?"
KUNM: And quickly Jerry, what's next for this proposal?
REDFERN: We wait to see what the bill is that pops up at the Legislature and see what these details are. See how they answer these questions.
