Latest news with #StrategicWaterSupply
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
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawmakers urge water board to reconsider produced water rule
The New Mexico No False Solutions Coalition and members of the Defend NM Water Campaign held a rally to share their concerns about the proposed oil and gas wastewater reuse rule on May 6, 2024 outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM) On Thursday, 27 Democratic New Mexico lawmakers wrote to the 14-member board that governs state water policy, urging members to reconsider in an upcoming meeting its recent decisions regarding oil and gas wastewater. Last month, the Water Quality Control Commission continued deliberations on a proposed rule to expand the uses of oil and gas water outside the oilfields. Deliberations have been ongoing since December 2023, when the New Mexico Environment Department petitioned to expand legal uses beyond oilfields. With New Mexico water sources expected to become increasingly strained by more demand and shrinking supplies from a hotter, drier climate, the relationship between oil and gas and its wastewater has sparked a major policy debate in the past few legislative sessions and in the WQCC's rulemaking. The state's oil and gas production generates billions of gallons of wastewater, which is extremely salty and can include radioactive materials and heavy metals from underground; chemicals used in the fracking process; or cancer-causing or toxic compounds mixed in from the oil and gas, such as benzene. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has floated using treated oil and gas wastewater in manufacturing and other industries in her Strategic Water Supply proposals, but lawmakers stripped produced water from the final bill. Water and conservation groups that opposed the idea said that treatments for the water remain unproven and the waste poses threats to human and environmental health. The WQCC rule-making deliberations included several weeks-long hearings in 2024 with hours of testimony from scientists, water experts, environmental officials and industry representatives. In April, recent edits to the rules culminated in the board adopting positions to allow for some pilot projects to discharge treated produced water into the groundwater, and allowed for so-called 'closed-loop' projects to bypass the permitting process. The letter, signed by Democrats in both chambers, called the board's limitations for these pilot projects 'insufficient,' and said they contradict existing law and potentially risk human and environmental health. 'The decision to allow ANY discharge of treated oil and gas waste to ground or surface water prior to the development of treatment and quality standards is both irresponsible and dangerous in the extreme,' the letter said. The letter cited testimony from New Mexico State University researchers, experts from the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and even NMED, which requested the rule change, that produced water contains toxic chemicals and treatment options have not been proven safe nor effective. 'Until credible, scientifically based standards for treatment and water quality are adopted, we believe it is premature to issue permits for any pilot treatments outside the oilfield,' the letter said, and suggested research can be done in the labs or in the field under existing laws. Lawmakers also said if the WQCC does allow pilot projects, then those projects must not discharge waste to surface or groundwater and must follow a permitting process, to allow for public notification and the right to protest. 'The Commission's decision on the issue is contrary to the legislature's intent and the letter of the law,' the letter stated. The letter cited motions filed by environmental groups and suggested that any law adopt more stringent permitting standards. The letter also recommended that the WQCC include tests of 600 substances in the treated water. WQCC Chair Bruce Thomson, an environmental engineer, said lawmakers raised 'some good points,' in the letter but that he disagrees with the characterization of oil and gas wastewater. 'My biggest concern with the letter is that they claim that treatment technologies do not exist. I will agree that treatment technologies are in an early stage of development,' Thomson told Source, saying the board heard testimony of 15 to 20 studies about potential technologies 'to treat it to a very high level of quality. Thomson said the objections to the lack of permits would likely be discussed in the next deliberation. Melissa Troutman, a climate and health advocate at WildEarth Guardians, told Source NM her group also argued to the WQCC that the leftovers from any produced water treatment process would meet the qualifications for hazardous waste. 'Our argument at Guardians is that it would be creating a new hazardous waste, but the rule isn't applying hazardous waste laws, and that's illegal,' she said, saying it would no longer have the exemption under oil and gas exploration. Troutman said there's still time to reshape the outcome. 'The door is still open for deliberation, and hopefully we can bring these points forward,' Troutman said. 'Hopefully, when they do issue a final rule, it's much, much closer to what we actually need.' The WQCC is next scheduled to meet Tuesday, May 13 to continue deliberations. HB128_GLGLettersgn5.8.25 SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NM Legislative Recap March 17: What's shaking out, or not, at the Roundhouse
With a week left in the session, here's where things stand. Scroll down lower in our recap to find a more detailed version of this chart. (Chart made with Fluorish) With five days remaining in New Mexico's 2025 legislative session, some bills that we thought would be important at the starting line have become law, while others have made little to no progress. For example, several high-profile bills like paid family leave and a tax on alcohol are most likely not going to move forward before the final gavel at noon Saturday. After an acrimonious special session in 2024, legislators and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham vowed to prioritize behavioral health and crime bills, passing a package of bills within the first half of the session for her approval. Lawmakers had sent 11 Senate bills and nine pieces of House legislation to the governor's office for her approval, as of Monday. Source NM previewed some of the big bills in public safety, water and climate and housing — here's what's moving, or not, since the session started. The day before the session, the state's attorney general and a senator announced a push to combat two forms of harm that affect young people: hazing and cyberbullying. To become laws, both the hazing bill and the cyberbullying one still need to pass two committees in the Senate and go through the entire process in the House of Representatives. Another lawmaker last week indicated that transparency legislation at a similar point in the process was 'out of time.' Legislative leaders made public safety and behavioral health the priorities for the session's first 30 days. They sent Lujan Grisham three bills that together aim to get more people into mental health treatment rather than dismissing their cases because they're unable to stand trial, while stiffening penalties for crimes related to guns and fentanyl trafficking, and she signed them on Feb. 27. A senator and a representative are carrying a proposal to make comprehensive sexual education available to every student in New Mexico, as a way of preventing teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted disease, sexual violence, bullying and sexual harassment. Two Senate committees have passed the bill, and it awaits a vote on the Senate floor. To become law, it would still need to go through the committee process and a floor vote in the House of Representatives. One of Lujan Grisham's signature proposals from last session is moving forward, although it's been radically reshaped this session. House Bill 137, the Strategic Water Supply, is limited to developing projects and grants for treating brackish, or salty waters in deep aquifers, stripping proposals dealing with oil and gas wastewater entirely. HB137 has an outstanding Senate Finance hearing and a Senate vote to clear. A bill to empower New Mexico to regulate pollution in surface waters such as streams and rivers, and continue the yearslong process to develop a state program for permits, is on the cusp of passage. Senate Bill 21 cleared all assigned committees and a Senate vote, and now awaits a hearing before the full House. Several bills to reform the oil and gas industry and enshrine greenhouse gas reduction goals into state law failed to clear committees this session. Rep. Kristina Ortez (D-Taos) told Source NM in a text message that two bills to beef up climate and public health tracking are not going to make it across the finish line this session, but that she will bring back the bills 'in full force, next year.' Those are House Bill 108, which proposed a $1.1 million program to track health impacts from extreme heat wildfire and more at the New Mexico Department of Health; and House Bill 109, which proposed a $12 million Climate Resilience Fund to offer up to $1 million grants to local and tribal governments for climate preparation and response. Two housing-related bills are making it farther this session than they have in previous years. One of them, which bans so-called 'source of income' discrimination, was introduced in at least two prior sessions but never made it out of committee. House Bill 339, which Reps. Angelica Rubio (D-Las Cruces) and Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe), sponsored, has passed the House and one Senate committee. It would prohibit landlords from turning away prospective tenants who carry housing subsidies like Section 8 vouchers. A similar bill, sponsored by Rep. Kathleen Cates (D-Rio Rancho), would require landlords to calculate prospective tenants' rent-to-income ratios only after subsidies like child support or Section 8 are accounted for. That bill has not yet gotten a hearing, so it's likely dead. A new state Office of Housing is also on its way toward clearing both chambers. Lawmakers last session voted against the bill, which would create an executive housing office tasked with collecting data and establishing a statewide strategy to deal with housing shortages. This year, it's cleared the House and is slated for a hearing soon on the Senate Floor. Advocates also hope Senate and House leadership will move forward on bills that would expunge eviction records after a certain number of years, prohibit the use of artificial intelligence algorithms to recommend maximum rent prices and crack down on excess rental application fees. The House's state budget proposal includes $110 million for housing development, including transitional housing, primarily in Bernalillo and Doña Ana counties, where lawmakers say the need is greatest. It would include almost $46 million to housing providers to focus on addressing homelessness. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE The Senate passed Senate Bill 305, which would create a task force to improve recruitment and retention of foster parents; and Senate Bill 481, which would create a new State Fairgrounds District, which could issue up to $1 billion in bonds to redevelop or relocate the State Fair. The Senate rolled the remainder of its calendar to an evening session scheduled for 7 p.m. on Monday. The House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 175, which would allow the Child Care Revolving Loan Fund to be used by more providers and to expand existing buildings; House Bill 244, which would lower the minimum age of magistrate judges from 30 to 28 years old; House Bill 348, which would raise civil penalties for water violations for the first time since 1907; House Bill 456, which would allow state agencies to use a price agreement for architectural or engineering services up to $2 million, not exceeding $15 million over four years; and House Bill 586, a zombie bill resurrecting Senate Bill 14, which would allow the Health Care Authority to review proposed mergers or acquisitions of health care facilities for potential negative health care impacts. At press time on Monday, the House was debating House Bill 426, which would require mobile home park owners to notify each resident and the Mortgage Finance Authority (MFA) of any offer for purchase the owner intends to accept. A similar proposal in 2023 didn't make it so far. On Monday morning, the House Health and Human Services Committee passed Senate Bill 219, the Medical Psilocybin Act, and it will now head to the House floor for a vote. That is the last action needed for the bill to be sent to the governor's desk to be signed into law. Rep. Elaine Sena Cortez (R-Hobbs) cast the only vote in opposition. The bill would allow providers to prescribe medicinal psilocybin to treat patients for post-traumatic stress disorder, major treatment-resistant depression, substance use disorders, end-of-life care and other conditions approved by the Department of Health. 'I'm supportive, you don't have to convince me of how beneficial this could be for a lot of people,' Rep. Jenifer Jones (R-Deming) told the bill sponsors during the meeting. House Health also voted to table Senate Bill 166, which would have redefined 'harm to self' and 'harm to others' in state law to allow for more people to be civilly committed into a locked facility. The House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee passed House Memorial 57, which would call for a study of recruitment and retention of police instructors; Senate Bill 42, which would require healthcare providers to screen for substance-exposed newborns at birthing facilities and have plans for safe care before these babies are discharged; and Senate Bill 52, which would align mileage reimbursements for lawmakers and their staff with the U.S. General Service Administration rate. The Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee passed Senate Bill 426, which would repeal an obsolete law related to the New Mexico School for the Blind and visually Impaired; Senate Bill 433, which would allow dentists and dental hygienists licensed in other states to practice in New Mexico, and vice versa; House Bill 77, which would require the state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to develop an annual outreach plan; House Bill 117, which would allow physicians' assistants or nurse practitioners to sign a death certificate when a doctor isn't around; House Bill 129, which would shorten the state worker probationary period from one year to six months; House Bill 448, which would create the Office of Housing Planning and Production; and House Bill 453, which would create a creditworthiness assistance program that would provide property managers with assistance for unpaid rent or rental property damages. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed Senate Bill 146, which would fix language in the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children; House Bill 101, which would allow 'commissioned' police officers to carry firearms in polling places; House Bill 178, which makes several changes to the Nursing Practice Changes Act to clarify the scope of practice for various categories of licensed nurses and expand the Board of Nursing board's powers, among other changes; House Bill 182, which would increase retirement benefits for district, Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court, appellate and state Supreme Court judges, and reduce the number of years a judge must serve before qualifying for a benefit; House Bill 183, which would do the same for magistrate judges; and House Bill 281, which would exempt hair braiding from licensure requirements under the Barbers and Cosmetologists Act (read more about that from our friends at KUNM). The Senate Education Committee passed House Bill 195, which would create a salary tier system for school nurses; and House Bill 433, which would direct three state agencies and the Legislative Education Study Committee to study the availability of career and technical education courses and instructors. The Senate Rules Committee passed House Bill 298, which would clarify procedures for mayoral vacancies, appointments and the roles of local governing bodies. The Senate Finance Committee passed Senate Bill 495, which would make university radio stations eligible for an equipment replacement fund that currently only applies to university television stations; House Bill 240, which would allow the New Mexico Finance Authority (NMFA) to make grants and loans from the drinking water state revolving loan fund for local water projects; and House Bill 449, which would create a statutory framework for funding big university projects, including student housing. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Strategic Water Supply slides over to Senate
Reverse osmosis membranes at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant as seen Sept. 26, 2022 in El Paso. The plant can treat up to 27 million gallons per day of brackish water for much of Eastern El Paso and Fort Bliss residents. (Danielle Prokop / Source New Mexico) 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.' 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.
