Water rule needs reuse safeguards

Freshwater is an everscarcer resource, and our policies should encourage industry recycling of produced water instead of freshwater in the process of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” so that freshwater can be protected for our communities, ranches and farms.

In recognition of our duty to safeguard our freshwater resources, as New Mexico’s Commissioner of Public Lands, I banned the commercial sale of freshwater from state trust lands for oil and gas development. This shift in policy has saved millions of gallons of drinking water and ensured the long-term stewardship of state trust lands and natural resources.

New Mexico ranks second in the United States in the production of oil. In 2023, New Mexico produced over 650 million barrels of oil. In that same year, the oil and gas industry consumed 86,747 acre feet of freshwater and produced 266,160 acre feet of fracking waste, also known as produced water, according to recent reports from the Bureau of Land Management.

While I believe it is important to reuse produced water in ongoing oil and gas operations, we need to be cautious in how we handle the reuse of produced water outside of the oil field. This is an emerging area and there are few peer-reviewed scientific studies related to the use of produced water outside of the oil and gas industry.

I applaud the New Mexico Environment Department for bringing a rule before the Water Quality Control Commission that prohibits untreated or treated produced water discharge to surface water or groundwater. Additionally, I support Environment Department’s denial of any federal permits for the discharge of untreated or treated produced water to surface water or groundwater.

However, there is less clarity regarding safeguards concerning the application of treated or untreated produced water to be reused in industrial projects. The law requires the Water Quality Control Commission to adopt “regulations to prevent or abate water pollution in the state” and must base those regulations on “credible scientific data.” We are at the early stage of our understanding of what chemicals are contained in produced water, which sometimes includes PFAS and radioactive materials and whether treatment of produced water is feasible, technically or economically at scale.

Produced water is constantly moved throughout the oilfields and spills and discharges are already an enormous problem. My office has worked tirelessly to hold companies accountable for spills and environmental damage to our public lands. However, it’s time for stronger penalties and more accountability at the state level for unauthorized releases of produced water at oil and gas sites.

With so much of New Mexico’s drinking water exposed to PFAS and other toxic chemicals, we have an obligation to ensure we are doing everything we can to safeguard health and environmental protections. New Mexico should avoid rushing to approve industrial uses for produced water because once water is contaminated, full cleanup is very expensive if it’s even possible, as they pertain to the use of produced water.

I urge the Water Quality Control Commission to adopt a rule that not only prohibits discharging produced water into our rivers, lakes or groundwater but also has strong safeguards for produced water reused in industrial settings, including the transportation, storage, handling and disposal of fracking waste all over New Mexico.