Strategic Water Supply slides over to Senate
A formerly controversial bill aimed at addressing a future in which New Mexico's limited water supplies become even more strained will soon have its first Senate committee hearing following House passage last week.
That passage came with no debate, following a significant overhaul in the face of considerable environmental opposition to the so-called Strategic Water Supply.
In a nutshell, the bill proposes a a $40 million program for removing the salt from less drinkable aquifers and $19 million to map how much water is available beneath the ground.
Rep. Susan Herrera (D-Embudo), who sponsored House Bill 137, said on the House Floor Friday that the bill is crucial for New Mexico as climate change shrinks the rivers and puts pressure on freshwater aquifers. New Mexico, she said, needs to develop additional sources of water to preserve fresh supplies for drinking and agriculture.
'There is no snow on the mountains,' Herrera said. 'I continue to remind members of the House this is one of the greatest dangers confronting our state.'
In a 57-4 vote, the House passed HB137, which now moves to the Senate Conservation and Finance committees before heading to the Senate floor. Senate Conservation scheduled the first hearing for Saturday.
Lawmakers have overhauled the legislation since it was first introduced in the session's opening days.
The Strategic Water Supply previously described a program to develop projects to treat not only brackish water, the salty water in deep aquifers belowground, but also oil and gas wastewater, often called produced water. A similar $500 million measure introduced in the 2024 session failed.
A coalition of indigenous, water and environmental nonprofit groups opposed to the project said the bill failed to address logistics of treating oil and gas wastewater and ignored the potential health and environmental risks.
Advocates shrunk down this session's proposal, initially seeking $75 million for developing treatment projects and technologies for oil and gas wastewater and a five-cent-tax per-barrel to generate revenue for the program.
Legislators stripped all references to oil and gas wastewater in committees, along with a proposed per barrel fee for oil and gas companies to pay to generate program revenue.
The bill now limits development to brackish water, including $40 million for a fund for grants to local communities or contracts to develop brackish water treatment facilities.
The fast vote reflects the efforts to change the bill, according to Rebecca Roose, the infrastructure advisor for Gov. Michlle Lujan Grisham's office, who has championed the project.
'We are running a bill that people really want to get behind, and we feel really encouraged by that,' Roose told Source NM.
Lingering objections to the bill remain.
Mariel Nanasi, the executive director of Santa Fe-based New Energy Economy, said the bill should require plants to use 100% renewable energy, given desalination plants' high-energy use.
'Desalination plants funded by the state should not exacerbate climate change, they should help us address water scarcity without exacerbating that scarcity with polluting energy sources,' Nanasi said in a written statement.
Nanasi said additional concerns with the current bill include the prospect for disposing of the concentrated brine from removing salt from the water.
HB137 pulls resources away from other initiatives to address water issues, said Norm Gaume, a former water engineer and member of Water Advocates.
'My major objection is the House Budget shortchanged the Office of the State Engineer and Interstate Stream Commission,' Gaume said in a statement. 'For example, HB2 includes $40 million for these brackish water initiatives and nothing to prevent the pending compact violation due to Middle Rio Grande water overuse.'
The bill also includes $4 million appropriation for New Mexico State University to develop additional treatment technology, and boosts the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources' budget by $19 million to study and monitor aquifers, which have never been fully characterized by the state, meaning New Mexico's exact water supplies are unknown.
'In the past, [the Bureau's] recurring funding was $600,000 per year,' Herrera said on the floor Friday. 'This sets a new stage for understanding water resources in our state, which I think is imperative to our future.'
All three appropriations made it into the state's budget in House Bill 2. On the floor, Rep. Jack Chatfield (R-Mosquero) introduced an amendment, which the House unanimously approved, to increase public input options during the process.
Roose said with 12 days left in the session, this bill stands front and center for the administration.
'We hope that based on the amount of changes that we made to the bill in the House that we will not see a lot more changes or maybe not any changes in the Senate, but it's one step at a time,' Roose said. 'We're just needing to let the process play out and we're definitely keeping a sense of urgency to make sure that we use the time left effectively.'
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