New Mexico energy advocates seek dismissal of new produced water case

Just a few months after state water officials updated a rule outlining how oil and gas wastewater can and cannot be used, a new organization is trying to broaden the rules.

That’s if the state doesn’t throw out the new case in its entirety, which certain energy advocates are asking for.

Oil and gas wastewater, known as produced water, is an incidental byproduct of drilling for fossil fuel resources. Much more produced water comes out of the ground than oil and gas, and operators in New Mexico generate tens of billions of gallons of produced water annually.

Most of that water goes back into the ground for drilling again, and some of it is disposed of via saltwater disposal wells, according to the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium. But with a surge in oil and gas production in New Mexico in recent years, some operators are getting more produced water than they can effectively handle.

That, plus dwindling water resources, pushed state, water and oil and gas officials to call on the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission to update rules on recycling produced water for non-oil field purposes, such as hydrogen energy or irrigation for crops not meant for human consumption.

The WQCC released a final rule in May allowing companies to treat and reuse produced water in certain approved projects, as long as the projects don’t involve any discharge to the state’s waterways.

While environmental advocates applauded the no-discharge rule, other activists involved in the case said it severely limits professionals’ ability to pursue meaningful produced water reuse projects.

So, in June, a newly formed organization called the Water Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance, or WATR, asked the WQCC to change the rules again to allow the New Mexico Environment Department to grant produced water discharge permits.

The new filing would only apply in 13 of New Mexico’s 33 counties — Chaves, Colfax, Doña Ana, Eddy, Harding, Lea, McKinley, Otero, Rio Arriba, Roosevelt, San Juan, Sandoval and Union counties. These northwestern and southeastern counties are the major regions where operators are producing oil and gas in the state.

The WATR Alliance, which was formed last year, requested that the state set a hearing for October in Jal, a city in southern Lea County, since the rule would affect that area. The WQCC in its July 8 meeting granted the hearing request, though officials haven’t yet set a date or location for the hearing.

New Energy Economy, the Center for Biological Diversity and individual Navajo Nation activists Mario Atencio and Daniel Tso on Friday filed to have the case dismissed, alleging that the WATR Alliance is mostly made up of the same parties who supported produced water reuse in the last case.

And, the advocates argue, an appeal of the last produced water reuse case is still pending with the New Mexico Court of Appeals. The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, or NMOGA, filed the appeal in June.

Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy, said there wasn’t enough evidence and science to support produced water discharge last year, and there still isn’t this year.

The WQCC is holding a hearing on the dismissal motion on Aug. 12, Nanasi told the Journal, though a filing hadn’t been posted online as of Tuesday afternoon.

“The real story is, is that oil and gas is out of cheap disposal methods for produced water,” Nanasi said.

Jennifer Bradfute, executive director of the WATR Alliance, denied that and said new post-COVID data on produced water wasn’t yet available last year due to a research lag everyone faced as a result of the pandemic.

“All those researchers now are publishing or getting ready to publish just huge amounts of data and studies that have been conducted,” she said.

She added that it’s a “red herring” that some WATR Alliance members are the same as supporters in the first produced water reuse case.

The new case has also garnered public support from state legislators and local chambers of commerce.

“This is a group of companies and entities and experts in New Mexico and throughout the Southwest — we’re bigger than New Mexico — that are passionate about water reuse,” Bradfute said. “That might include a few members of NMOGA. It might include some folks with oil and gas ties. But it also includes a lot of people with no oil and gas ties. … Our common ground is we care about water reuse.”