Speak out on rule to reuse wastewater
The Produced Water Act requires that the Water Quality Control Commission “shall adopt water quality standards for surface and ground waters of the state based on credible scientific data and other evidence appropriate under the Water Quality Act.”
However, the wastewater reuse rule being proposed by New Mexico Environment Department fails to include scientific standards. The proposed rule states that “the department shall not approve a discharge permit plan or a discharge permit plan modification that includes the discharge of treated produced water without development and adoption of standards specific to treated produced water (Subsection
D of 20.6.8.400 NMAC).” The problem?? There is nothing in Subsection D of 20.6.8.400! That section is simply reserved for future delineation.
Not only are there no water-quality standards defined, but there are no standards for treatment. The rule simply states that “reuse water” means a treated wastewater originating from domestic, industrial or produced water sources, which has undergone a level of treatment appropriate for an application such as agriculture, irrigation, potable water supplies, aquifer recharge, industrial processes or environmental restoration. The rule does not define what is appropriate or even who decides what is appropriate.
Fracking fluids can contain PFAS, bromide, arsenic, mercury, barium, radioactive isotopes and organics like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes. Scientists have repeatedly documented harmful health impacts, including cancer, from exposure to these toxic and radioactive contaminants to oil field workers, wastewater treatment plant employees, and to wildlife and people downstream of oil and gas wells and fracking waste treatment plants.
The governor and the Environment Department are proposing rules to allow demonstration and industrial projects to treat and reuse this toxic fracking waste before bothering to define the water-quality and treatment standards these projects will have to meet. Why are the governor and department putting the cart before the horse? Presumably to fast-track a Strategic Water Supply scheme to spend $500 million of public money to help the oil and gas industry solve a waste problem.
For every barrel of oil and gas produced in the Permian Basin, an average four barrels of fracking waste is produced. As oil and gas production has ramped up, industry is running out of room. In 2022, the oil and gas industry produced more than 131,000 Olympic-size swimming pools of fracking waste. Some is reused to drill new wells, some is injected underground into saltwater disposal wells, which appear to have the unfortunate effect of dramatically increasing earthquakes in the region (from 119 in 2019 to 2,404 in 2022), and some is stored in evaporation ponds until it is concentrated into a toxic sludge trucked to landfill sites across New Mexico.
The Environment Department’s “Reuse” Rule (that’s the title) prohibits outright “discharge” of this fracking waste onto pecan or chile fields, but authorizes “reuse” of “treated produced water” without any scientific standards to safeguard the public health. What’s the difference? Is the state playing a game of semantics with our lives?
The rule ignores a peer-reviewed scientific report by the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium’s associate director that states: “Intensive research is needed to provide scientific and technical knowledge to establish science-based regulations and develop well-informed permitting programs for the safe reuse of treated produced water outside of the O&G fields.”
Every New Mexican should be outraged by this brazen attempt to offload the oil and gas industry’s toxic waste into our lands, waters and our bodies. A hearing on the proposed rule will begin May 13. You can learn more about the hearing at NewEnergyEconomy.org. Please join us in telling the Water Quality Control Commission: “Don’t poison our water!”