OPINION: OPINION: New Mexico needs a strategic water supply for development of non-traditional water
Feb. 24—A 2014 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office gave a wake-up call to U.S. water planners, highlighting that 45 states, including New Mexico, were on a trajectory to experience regional and state-wide fresh water supply shortages by 2024. In response, many states initiated improved water supply planning.
For the past few years, New Mexico has worked with water management agencies, academia, communities, and the public to study our water resources and future supply challenges. The results are sobering: New Mexico can expect a 25%-30% reduction in fresh water availability by 2070. This requires a major shift in water planning and infrastructure development, with more reliance on using nontraditional waters, such as municipal and industrial wastewater, and brackish and produced water.
The Environmental Protection Agency recognized that the development and use of nontraditional waters is important and in 2020, established a National Water Reuse Action Plan (WRAP) to assist states in conducting the research to demonstrate safe, fit-for-purpose treatment and reuse of five major waste waters: industrial, municipal, agricultural, produced water, and storm water.
New Mexico's 50-year Water Action Plan, developed in 2023, acknowledges that New Mexico has significant brackish groundwater and produced water resources that can be treated and used for designated uses to reduce future water shortfalls. The proposed Strategic Water Supply initiative is one of several important efforts identified in the 50-year water plan and focuses on creating funding to purchase treated brackish and produced water, encouraging construction of treatment plants, and providing water for new economic development initiatives. Two bills proposed in the NM Legislature will provide funding to establish and develop the Strategic Water Supply (House Bill 137 and Senate Bill 342).
In a February 10, 2025, Albuquerque Journal op-ed, Mariel Nanasi claimed that "the science needed to ensure safe reuse of produced water simply does not exist," that "current treatment technologies struggle to address the vast array of contaminants, let alone the new toxic byproducts that can form during treatment processes," and that "we lack the scientific knowledge to ensure its safety." However, those claims are not true.
Produced water has been treated, permitted, and safely discharged to the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania since 2014. In California, brackish water and produced water have been treated and blended with surface water for over 25 years and permitted for agricultural irrigation in California's Central Valley. Wyoming permitted a produced water facility to treat and discharge coal bed methane-produced water for almost 10 years.
Since 2020, New Mexico State University has supported the EPA's research efforts on the health, safety, and environment toxicology of using treated produced water. NMSU's research has been done in cooperation with industry, academia, and state and federal agencies, and has included evaluation of over a dozen produced water treatment technologies. This includes sampling and state-of-the-art analysis of treated produced water for over 400 targeted chemical compounds and non-target analysis for thousands of potential trace chemicals along with risk and toxicology analysis on aquatic species, human cell lines, and vertebrate species.
The data and results have been peer-reviewed and are publicly available. Conclusions from full-scale produced water treatment plants and large-scale treatment demonstrations are clear and overwhelming: Produced and brackish water can be treated and safely put to beneficial use with no adverse impact on the public or environmental health and safety.
Creating and funding the Strategic Water Supply is an innovative approach to new water resource development through public/private funding. It should be supported by all New Mexicans, offering a bold vision of 'water stewardship,' supporting long-term economic growth and future water supply sustainability.
John D'Antonio is president of the New Mexico Desalination Association, and Mike Hightower is an association board member.
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