Latest news with #MarielNanasi
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Group that blocked New Mexico utility merger eyes data centers in Blackstone deal
By Laila Kearney NEW YORK (Reuters) -Blackstone Infrastructure's plans for data centers in New Mexico will be a deciding factor in whether stakeholders challenge the private equity group's $11.5-billion proposed acquisition of electric company TXNM Energy, the group that blocked TXNM's previous merger plan told Reuters this week. TXNM, which is a holding company for regulated utilities, including PNM in New Mexico, announced its sale agreement with Blackstone on Monday in the latest of several recent U.S. power industry deals propelled by rising electricity demand from Big Tech's AI data centers. The agreement will require the approval of state regulators, with input from PNM stakeholders, including the New Mexico Department of Justice, consumer advocates and clean power groups such as New Energy Economy. New Energy led the effort to ultimately thwart TXNM's last agreement to sell to power company Avangrid, the U.S. unit of Spanish electric company Iberdrola. After the fight over the proposed acquisition escalated to the New Mexico Supreme Court, Avangrid abandoned its $8.3-billion bid for TXNM in late 2023. Since the foiled deal, data centers have emerged as the biggest driving force behind U.S. electricity demand, which is on track to reach record highs this year and in 2026. How Blackstone plans to capitalize on that demand in New Mexico will be a key issue in New Energy Economy's scrutiny of the TXNM purchase, the nonprofit's director, Mariel Nanasi, said. Among the considerations are whether Blackstone intends to own data centers in New Mexico, either directly or through affiliates, and how it handles the costs of upgrading electrical systems to connect the large energy loads, Nanasi said. "We are going to want to have real guardrails around that," she said. TXNM and Blackstone representatives, on a call with investors shortly after the acquisition announcement, said they planned to meet with stakeholders over the next 90 days before filing their plan with the state. As artificial intelligence data centers proliferate and grow to use record amounts of electricity, regulatory fights have emerged over who pays for additional infrastructure and upgrades needed for the giant energy consumers. The regulated utilities under TXNM can power data centers, but they are barred by state regulations from developing, owning, or operating the centers for third parties, said one person familiar with the Blackstone-TXNM arrangement, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Any transmission upgrades or power generation built to serve data centers would be paid for by the data center companies, the person said.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
State water quality board backs off controversial oil and gas project discharges
About 30 people held protest signs during the Water Quality Control Commission meeting Tuesday afternoon, as deliberations continue over a proposed produced water rule. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM) Several environmental groups declared victory in an ongoing rulemaking process to expand the uses of oil and gas wastewater beyond the oilfields, after the Water Quality Control Commission during a Tuesday hearing reversed its position to allow releases into the environment. 'We're so delighted that the commission took their responsibility so seriously and applied science and applied the law,' New Energy Economy Executive Director Mariel Nanasi told Source NM after the meeting. 'There's no evidence that produced water can be treated and reused safely; without knowing what needs to be removed from produced water, it is impossible to develop treatment standards or assure the public that discharges will be safe.' The substantial shift comes just 10 days before the WQCC has to issue a final decision in the yearslong and controversial effort to treat and potentially reuse oil and gas wastewater. The process began in December 2023 when the New Mexico Environment Department petitioned the commission to adopt rules to expand reuse beyond oilfields. That process included weeks of testimony in 2024 from scientists, water experts, environmental officials and industry representatives. Scientists project that drought and warming temperatures from human-caused climate change will reduce New Mexico's water supplies by 25% in the next three decades, and place more strain on rivers and aquifers. For the past several years, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has proposed a so-called Strategic Water Supply that would treat and use oil and gas wastewater to compensate for those losses. However, lawmakers in the most recent legislative session stripped produced water from the final bill. Opposing water and conservation groups said treatment technology for the water remains unproven and the waste poses harm to human and environmental health. The New Mexico oil and gas industry generates billions of gallons of wastewater. The mixture is extremely salty and can contain radioactive materials, heavy metals, toxic chemicals and cancer-causing compounds from the oil and gas, such as benzene. In April, the commission adopted a draft version of the rule that would allow pilot projects using oil and gas wastewater to discharge up to 84,000 gallons per day into groundwater. Environmental groups New Energy Economy, WildEarth Guardians, Amigos Bravos and the Sierra Club submitted several arguments that the decision violated existing laws; was not based on previous testimony; and potentially threatened human and ecological health. More than two dozen Democratic lawmakers also weighed in last week, urging the Water Quality Control Commission to reconsider. Lawmakers urge water board to reconsider produced water rule On Tuesday, WQCC members acceded to those arguments. 'At this point, I believe it's premature for us to authorize discharge permits, even for pilot projects,' said Commissioner Bill Brancard during deliberations. Commissioners did not allow attorneys for the environmental groups, nor ones for the oil and gas industry, to make oral arguments on Tuesday, but instead deliberated for several hours. The vote was unanimous, although two commissioners abstained, saying they had not been present for testimony in 2024, did not feel informed enough to cast a vote. About 30 people attended the Roundhouse hearing, displaying signs stating 'No discharge of fracking waste' and 'Water is life,' prompting warnings from two Sergeants at Arms to keep signs outside the meeting room. When commissioners voted to strike discharges from the rules, attendees applauded. 'Fracking waste is by no matter a light concern,' Ennedith López, a policy campaign manager at Youth United for Climate Crisis Action (YUCCA), told Source before the vote. 'It's radioactive wastewater that they want to use potentially for agriculture projects for construction and development, and that comes at the harm of people's health.' Commissioners also determined that state law mandates that using produced water would most likely require a permit, which would be more stringent than the process in the draft rule. At one point, commissioners floated scrapping the entire process, which would send the New Mexico Environment Department back to the drawing board, but decided instead to add language requiring pilot projects to seek permits. Deliberations Wednesday will include more information about what information pilot projects would need to require for permitting, and if the rule needs to be revisited in the future. Attorneys for New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, which is also party to the rulemaking, declined to comment Tuesday. Produced water proponents said they were disappointed with the commission's decision Tuesday. Restrictions on discharges will push produced water treatment to Texas, said Mike Hightower, the program director at the Produced Water Consortium, a private-public research group. 'With no discharge, all the companies that want to discharge the water for beneficial use: agriculture, surface water, putting water in Pecos for ecological flows, can't do that here, so they'll go to Texas' Hightower said. He also said a permitting process would increase the time needed for approval on pilot projects. 'Nobody's going to do a small pilot project that takes a year and a half to get permitted when they can go to Texas and get it with no permit or a permit that takes a couple of weeks,' Hightower said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
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.
