Project to fill defunct brine well is facing $9M shortfall

Cost of work increased during engineering and design phase

CARLSBAD — A project seeking to stop a defunct brine well in southeastern New Mexico from collapsing and disrupting a major thoroughfare of the region’s oil industry faces an estimated $9 million shortfall.

New Mexico Energy Secretary Sarah Cottrell Propst said last week the anticipated budget shortfall for the remediation of the Carlsbad Brine Well is $8.9 million, the Carlsbad Current-Argus newspaper reports .

She said the cost of the project rose during the engineering and design work.

“When the Legislature and my predecessor, Secretary (Ken) McQueen, and everyone worked together to put the initial funding together, we did not have a final contract, and we did not have surface access agreements negotiated, and we did not include gross receipts tax, and overhead wasn’t included,” Cottrell Propst said Friday at a meeting of the Carlsbad Brine Well Remediation Authority in Carlsbad.

The project, which would fill a 400-foot under

ground cavity below the intersection of U.S. 285 and 62/180, was first estimated to cost $43 million.

Formerly owned by the now-defunct company I&W, the brine well was decommissioned in 2008 when the land was deemed unstable.

The well is operated by pumping freshwater into an underground salt formation and drawing up the resulting brine for use in the oil field. After decades of this work, a large cavity formed beneath the surface and under one of the busiest highway junctions in southeastern New Mexico, where U.S. Highways 285 and 62/180 converge as traffic travels to and from the oil field.

A collapse could interrupt a main thoroughfare for an industry New Mexico relies on for about a third of its overall budget, while also damaging crucial other infrastructures such as the Carlsbad Irrigation District and area train tracks.

Eddy County and the City of Carlsbad are contributing $4 million for the next three years for the remediation project. The state Department of Transportation Road Fund appropriated $30 million over three years.

Cottrell Propst said state officials are going to meet with the state lawmakers on putting aside additional money to address the shortfall.

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS A defunct brine well operation in Carlsbad is fenced off because state officials fear a cavern that has formed under the site is at risk of collapsing. A project aiming to prevent the defunct brine well from collapsing is facing an estimated $9 million shortfall, officials said.