Environment Department releases final feasibility study for ‘strategic water supply’ | Local News

Sydney Lienemann, a senior adviser for the department, said it will come before the Legislature with a “tighter request” based on the recently released feasibility study. 

A final version was published on the Environment Department’s website Friday. A draft of the study was made public in September and has been subject to public comment in the meantime. The department received 17 written public comments, Lienemann said, each of which included hundreds of individual comments. 

“We know so much more,” she said. 

The funding mechanism is the most significant change, Lienemann said. This year, a leaner proposal is being put forward, requesting $75 million in grant funding for projects to treat hydraulic fracturing wastewater and naturally occurring brackish water. 

The oil and gas industry will also have to pay for fracking wastewater disposal services through a by-the-barrel fee.

Lienemann is feeling more confident about this year’s proposal. 

“We’re making sure that everyone has skin in the game,” she said. “The oil and gas industry are participating really actively by funding this project that helps them deal with the problem that they have, which is: How do they dispose of produced water?” 

Fracking water in New Mexico, often called “produced water,” typically takes one of three routes: It’s either recycled back into production, injected underground or transported out of state for disposal. 

In a legislative committee meeting in September, Environment Secretary James Kenney said if 95% of the wastewater produced by the oil and gas industry was recycled, there would still be almost 2 billion barrels left behind, requiring disposal.

Injection — the most-utilized disposal method — can raise concerns about seismicity, or the frequency of earthquakes. Earlier this year, 75 pending permits were canceled for new injection wells in areas that had seen increased seismicity in recent years.

That’s one of several motivations behind the strategic water supply, which has been touted as a way to conserve water and reduce competition for fresh water between residents, agriculture and other industries as the state pushes for economic growth. The Environment Department is bracing for a significant decrease in river flows over the next half-century, which could slow the recharge of groundwater aquifers and result in a shortfall of hundreds of millions of gallons over the next 50 years. 

“To expand our economy and lower carbon emissions without protecting and saving our freshwater for communities would be a reckless effort,” Kenney said in a statement.

He added, “Instead, New Mexico is meeting the moment for the generations of New Mexican families who will find employment in the industries that both solve climate change and ensure water security.” 

The treated water has several proposed uses, including cooling data centers and cement production. The study estimates using treated — rather than fresh — water to cool data centers could save 2.2 million gallons of fresh water. If used in advanced manufacturing, including solar and vehicle production, treated water could save 3.7 billion gallons of fresh water. 

“In my mind, it’s making sure that we’re protecting drinking water resources but also building the economy here in New Mexico,” Lienemann said. “In every clean energy project that I’ve been part of … water is always the rate-limiting factor, and we know that the cost of water is going to go up exponentially in the coming years.”

Another motivator is mentioned briefly in the study: Metals and other minerals pulled from naturally occurring brackish water can be used in a variety of industrial applications.

The brine in brackish water can contain rare earth elements, as well as materials like lithium and cobalt, which are critical for the manufacture of everything from electric car batteries to wind turbines to solar panels. Currently, Lienemann said, the U.S. relies on other countries for those needs — countries that are “not necessarily our allies.”

Finding those resources at home, in addition to producing less waste and creating an additional revenue source for companies treating the water, is a good thing, Lienemann argued. 

“It’s kind of a win-win-win,” she said.

The Environment Department study also points to remaining gaps in knowledge; questions linger about transportation of fracking wastewater and groundwater recharge times.

That’s why the legislation includes grants to New Mexico State University and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology to catalogue the state of water resources in New Mexico. There’s also questions about what, exactly, is in fracking wastewater. 

Research from 2022, cited in the study, examined 14 samples from the Permian Basin in New Mexico and found radionuclides including radium, uranium, plutonium and volatile organic compounds. One sample was contaminated with five different types of PFAS, although the only compound regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was measured at a much lower concentration than the agency’s maximum contaminant level.

The source of the contaminants is uncertain. 

“Because these samples had been treated for injection for disposal, some compounds may not have been associated with hydraulic fracturing fluid,” the study said. 

Existing public data doesn’t always cover everything found in produced water, the study states, and identifying the concentrations of PFAS and radionuclides is especially important to researchers. At a November hearing, the state Oil Conservation Commission considered a rule to ban the use of PFAS in the oil and gas industry. Trade secret rules were a point of contention throughout the four-day hearing. 

“Concern has also arisen that important constituents may be missed even in more thorough analyses because they are not expected or claimed as proprietary (for hydraulic fracturing additives),” the report states. 

Some chemicals used in the fracking process are disclosed in FracFocus, the national fracking chemical disclosure registry. But not everything is included.

“FracFocus is a great resource,” Lienemann said. “But because a lot of these constituents are trade secrets, we don’t feel like we necessarily have a great handle on everything that’s in there.”

Lienemann said she is unaware of any legislative proposals to change disclosure requirements. The state Environment Department is pursuing a ban on non-essential PFAS in products, as well as partnering with New Mexico State University to perform non-targeted analysis on produced water, which would test for all constituents, not just a specific list. 

“We don’t feel comfortable proposing discharge standards until we have a really clear idea of everything that’s in them,” Lienemann said. “This non-targeted analysis, I think, is a really good way to understand the full universe of potential hazards in there.”

Treating water is expensive and energy-intensive.

Treating produced water has been attempted by companies in other states, according to the report. But at least one of the companies shuttered its treatment plant due to “high operating costs,” and a couple of others closed a few years after starting operations. 

Produced water in the San Juan Basin, which is less salty than wastewater produced in the Permian Basin, is likely less expensive to treat, but it accounts for a tiny fraction — about 1% — of the produced water in the state.

Brackish water, which has more consistent constituents, is likely cheaper still to treat. However, it could cost more to bring that water to the surface. There could also be environmental impacts from tapping brackish water, including saltwater leaching into freshwater aquifers and lower river flows, the report states. 

“Also, given the state’s decarbonization goals, it may be important to consider the energy sources for water desalination treatment plants to understand the impact on achieving these goals,” the report states.

“These technologies are very energy intensive, and so there is no question that as we’re investing in water treatment that we need to be really thoughtful about the energy sources that we choose to power these plants,” Lienemann said. 

That could include using wind or solar power. 

But Lienemann said she thinks some of the provisions help “de-risk” the investment. The time to act is now, she said, before the water supply shrinks. 

“I think the feasibility study has shown that not only can we do it, but we really have to do it,” Lienemann said. “It is essential for the future of our economy, for the future of our communities. There’s no question in my mind that this is the answer for New Mexico.”