New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney speaks to the Senate Finance Committee in support of the governor’s water supply proposal Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. Photo by Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican

Environment Department Secretary James Kenney speaks to Sen. Crystal Brantley, (R-Elephant Butte), at the Senate Finance Committee in support of the governor’s water supply proposal Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. Photo by Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican

By DANIEL J. CHACÓN 
The Santa Fe New Mexican

The New Mexico Environment Department is pushing ahead with a proposal to tap brackish water and hydraulic fracturing wastewater for industrial use amid opposition from Indigenous and environmental groups that call it a giveaway to the oil and gas industry.

Energy Secretary James Kenney told lawmakers Monday the department “kicked off” the process last week by issuing a request for information that closes March 31. The department then plans to issue a request for proposals to ask for more industry-specific concept papers, he said.

“By the end of the year at the earliest, we think we’d be in the position to make some selections, provided the appropriation came through,” he said, referring to a request from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to the Legislature to appropriate $500 million in severance tax bonds to make her “strategic water supply” proposal a reality.

“The strategic water supply is a concept … to create less reliance on our freshwater and preserve freshwater resources” while allowing the state to grow the economy, Kenney said. The plan would make treated brackish water available for use in manufacturing and construction.

“We’re at a crossroads in how do we preserve freshwater for our communities and keep that as the highest and greatest use” while providing water for industries, he said.

Under the governor’s proposal, the state would purchase the treated water while the private sector would develop all the infrastructure.

“There’s no cost to the state on the infrastructure side,” Kenney said.

The plan to buy what’s known as “produced water” from fracking has unleashed a flood of criticism toward the governor.

A report released ahead of Kenney’s presentation to the Senate Finance Committee asserts Lujan Grisham has “gone out of her way to court the oil and gas industry.”

The report analyzed campaign finance reports and other public records “to illuminate the paths of influence and association that lie behind the governor’s produced water plan.”

According to the report, Lujan Grisham has received at least $1.38 million in campaign contributions from energy-related interests, 64 percent of which “came from entities primarily engaged in or associated with oil and gas production.“

“This is about a payback to her campaign contributors,” Mariel Nanasi said, executive director of the Santa Fe-based nonprofit New Energy Economy. “It’s the worst in pay-to- play.”

Nanasi called the governor’s proposal a “crazy scheme” that relies on unproven technology.

“It’s like she’s trying to build the Taj Mahal on an EPA superfund swamp site for her campaign contributors and selling it as a flowering promise for our grandchildren,” Nanasi said during a news conference outside the Roundhouse with other opponents of the governor’s proposal.

Maddy Hayden, a spokeswoman for the governor, wrote in an email the Lujan Grisham administration “continues to build out clean, renewable energy sources at historic rates.”

Hayden rejected Nanasi’s assertion the governor’s plan is a bailout for the oil and gas industry, which Nanasi and others say is leading the push for a hydrogen economy that Lujan Grisham has championed.

“Processes to manufacture and produce power, as well as alternative fuel vehicles, rely heavily on water, which is exactly the purpose of the Strategic Water Supply,” Hayden wrote. “As we continue to build out the clean energy economy, we add good-paying jobs that support the transition away from fossil fuels, including in frontline communities”

The governor’s proposal, she added, is critical to those efforts, “as well as efforts to ensure that as the clean energy economy flourishes, freshwater resources are preserved for other uses including agriculture (which encompasses around 75 percent of water use) and municipal/domestic use (which encompasses around 20 percent of water use).”

Nanasi said during the news conference the governor’s plan is intended to help oil and gas producers, particularly in the Permian Basin, “solve their enormous problem with wastewater disposal and allow for continued extraction … bleeding New Mexico dry.”

Frederick Bermudez, a spokesman for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, declined to respond to Nanasi’s remarks.

“Water is New Mexico’s most precious resource,” he said. “The state’s oil and gas industry is committed to preserving water and using it as efficiently as possible.”

Ennedith Lopez with Youth United for Climate Crisis Action, addresses the crowd at a rally to oppose the governor’s water supply proposal Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. Photo by Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican

Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy, speaks to the crowd during a rally in opposition of the governor’s water supply proposal outside the state Capitol Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. Photo by Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican