Water management: The New Mexico soap opera

MARK PATTON, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR 

Back in 2023, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (Dem.), while attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference—also known as COP (Conference of the Parties)—in Dubai, announced a $500 million investment in a Strategic Water Supply Plan, which included money for produced water.  

The New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium NMPWRC had been pushing for produced water reuse projects and was supplying the research and testing to understand the chemical makeup of produced water. They looked at technologies, chemistry and toxicity, among many other things. I would go as far as to say they were the leading institution at the time, when it comes to all things produced water.  

Mike Hightower led the consortium and frankly, he was doing a great job. Combine this with the New Mexico governor’s announcement, and it was looking like we were making progress towards a more sustainable produced water program. 

What is a sustainable produced water program? Today, roughly 70% of produced water is injected in disposal wells, and 30% is recycled as a completion fluid for new well completions. Then, we started seeing an earthquake problem associated with disposal wells, and the produced water management program became stressed.  

To relieve this stress, it became a goal to find ways to reuse produced water. Some of the low-hanging fruit was agricultural reuse on non-food crops like alfalfa and cotton and potentially cooling water for industrial reuse. A sustainable program would add more reuse to the equation and reduce the amount of produced water going to disposal wells.  

But those aren’t the only options. Considering that many of the areas where produced water is generated—like New Mexico and Texas—are drought-stricken, options like groundwater recharge and the emergence of data centers creates a new demand for cooling water. We have been moving in this direction, and New Mexico was leading the charge. We were moving in a more sustainable direction when it came to produced water management. 

The case for water positivity. There is a worldwide movement towards water positivity. Currently, I belong to the Water Positive Think Tank, an international group helping move this agenda. Water Positivity has to do with reducing your water consumption while offsetting your water use with “new water.”  

What does this mean? Finding wastewaters and treating them for reuse. An example of this being done on a large scale is groundwater recharge, using grey water or treated municipal water. Produced water is generated at 4-6 times the amount of oil, so turning this into a new source of clean water is a game-changing development. 

The argument against. Opponents of produced water say it’s too toxic, we don’t know enough about it, we can’t trust Big Oil. Let me say one thing, having spent over 10 years working with produced water. It’s primarily contaminated with salts and minerals. The problem is that salt levels can be so high as to make the treatment process expensive.  

Thanks to the work of the NMPWRC, we have a pretty good idea of what’s in produced water and its toxicity. But more importantly, we can treat it to clean standards. Personally, municipal water is far more contaminated and toxic, and yet we are discharging it into drinking water groundwater recharge programs or discharging it into the ocean and rivers and getting into our food chain. Opposition claims we don’t know everything that’s in the water, which is true of all water on this planet. So, we create water quality standards and perform toxicity testing, using these standards, and that’s been good enough for every water discharged. The opposition wants it banned, with no standards ever developed. This isn’t progress. 

Back to the New Mexico soap opera. After Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s announcement, we returned to New Mexico, only to find that her plan that she announced on the world stage didn’t have support back home, and the produced water provisions were backed out.  

It wasn’t like this proposal came out of nowhere. Back in 2019, New Mexico passed the Produced Water Act, which created some clarity for produced water management and ownership but also directed the Water Quality Control Commission to create draft regulations for produced water reuse. Once back from Dubai, the debate started—what to do with produced water. On one side, you had industry supporting regulation for reuse outside of the oil field and unlocking the full potential of produced water. On the other side were the Sierra Club and others wanting no discharge of produced water, period. 

Even with a feasibility study published by the New Mexico Environmental Department showing how significant amounts of fresh water would be saved by reusing produced water (but it also cited cost obstacles), the opposition continued. In April of this year, they decided against any discharges of produced water outside of the oil field.  

In May of this year, a meeting convened to at least allow pilot projects to discharge, to prove the safety of the practice, but this was shot down. Then in July, a new group, Water Access Treatment and Reuse Alliance, WATR, filed a petition to consider the proposal of new regulations that would allow the discharge of treated water, and it looked like this proposal had legs. Then the politics started.  

More New Mexico drama. James Kenney is New Mexico’s State Environmental Secretary, and the opposition has targeted him. The claim is that he is too close to the industry on this issue, and by encouraging the commissioners to attend hearings, he was using undue influence. The opposition tried to stop the WATR proposal, but the attempt failed, and things seemed to be moving forward, as directed under the 2019 Produced Water Act, by the way.  

The claim is that Mr. Kenney’s email and internal communications are somehow improper interference. Having internal discussions or what they called “huddle meetings” was also improper, according to the opposition. I know every state has its nuances, but since when can commissioners and staff not have discussions? The opposition says it violates “open meeting” requirements, but I’m a little familiar with these requirements and they typically prohibit voting members from meeting privately to discuss items that will be voted on, not communication between staff.  

The other claim is that the governor’s office was putting undue pressure on the voting members of the commission. But this month, everything changed. After the allegations of interference and improper influence, a couple of news articles came out, supporting the claim. The commission ultimately voted to overturn their July vote and continue to uphold their original position of banning produced water discharges outside of the oil field. 

Thank God for Texas. In spite of the New Mexico drama, Texas has picked up the dropped baton and sprinted forward. Supporting pilot projects and full-scale discharges, and working to develop standards for produced water discharges in the future. So, the sustainable, water-positive story of produced water will become a reality in Texas, just not in New Mexico. I will do my best to keep you all informed of all things concerning produced water. See you next time.