Severance Bonds for Brackish Water Stall

The Senate Conservation Committee on Tuesday tabled a bill to establish what Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham touted as a “Strategic Water Supply” project. With less than two days remaining in the session, its chances of passage are slim.

The governor announced her plan to pay private companies to develop treatment and delivery systems for underground brackish water and for water pumped to the surface by the oil and gas industry during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai last year. While Lujan Grisham originally called for $250 million in severance tax bonds from the current legislative session and a total of $500 million with future bonds, Senate Bill 294, sponsored by Sen. Liz Stefanics, D-Santa Fe, at the governor’s behest, proposed to carve out $100 million in severance tax bonds for the projects.

Stefanics explained she supports the plan—a four-page measure she rolled out a day before the hearing with support from Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, and Sen. William Sharer, R-Farmington—because it’s a way for the state to stretch potable water by using lower-quality water for industrial uses and “part of a vision that the executive branch has for attracting industry to our state.”

Under the proposal, the state would support privately funded water treatment operations by promising to purchase water, then sell it to manufacturers. The bill notably removed all references to the oil and gas industry’s “produced water” and instead only includes projects for “water sourced from a brackish water aquifer,” defined as having dissolved solids concentration between 1,000 and 10,000 grams per liter.

The concessions, however, weren’t enough for members of the committee who voted 8-1 across party lines to table the measure, with only Stefanics voting in favor.

Sen. Harold Pope, D-Albuquerque, said debating the measure with just days left in the session was too rushed.

“We know we are going to go in this direction,” he said. “We know the needs of our state…We really have to get this right.”

Representatives from various environmental conservation organizations testified against the measure during the hearing.

“We do believe it is likely that treatment of brackish water plays some role in addressing our water crisis in the future, however, we have a number of questions and concerns…that we do not believe there is time to address in this session,” said Tricia Synder, who spoke on behalf of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, Amigos Bravos and New Mexico Wild.

Norm Gaume, former director of the Interstate Stream Commission and a member of the state’s Water Projects and Infrastructure Task Force, said he was speaking only for himself when he called the proposal “ill-conceived.”

”This bill is the wrong thing to do for New Mexico at this time of water crisis,” Gaum said, adding later, “it is not beginning with the end in mind and it is not putting first things first.”

Gaum asked legislators to instead make a plan to comply with the Water Security Planning Act, which the state adopted in 2023 but lacks appropriate funding.

A spokeswoman for Lujan Grisham issued a statement late Tuesday, which said the governor was “disappointed the bill was tabled in Senate Conservation this morning. However, we are continuing to negotiate with legislative leadership to move the Strategic Water Supply forward.”

Rebecca Roose, the governor’s infrastructure advisor, said at the hearing that the bill ties together the state’s water challenges and its clean energy transition. While Lujan Grisham has said the strategy could be used for “green hydrogen” development, Stefanics said the bill didn’t target a specific potential industry end-user.