Millions coming to New Mexico for water infrastructure, law enforcement

A water supply project on the Navajo Nation will get more than $50 million, and more than $600 million is going toward defense-related cleanup in New Mexico after Congress passed appropriations bills to fund four federal agencies.

Recently, the Senate passed appropriations bills to fund the Departments of Justice, Interior, Commerce and Energy, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, water programs and federal science programs. The bills headed to President Donald Trump’s desk include money for dozens of New Mexico-based projects.

Some of the most expensive allocations are for the state’s two national labs and the nuclear waste site in Carlsbad, but the legislation also includes millions in congressionally directed spending for New Mexico law enforcement agencies, water infrastructure and conservation efforts. Congressionally directed spending, or earmarks, is a way for members of Congress to allocate funds directly to local projects.

Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján have directed over $50 million to the design and construction of the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project. Luján, Heinrich and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who are all Democrats, also secured a provision that increases the project’s cost ceiling and lets the Bureau of Reclamation move money to support it from its water settlements fund. The ongoing infrastructure project will bring water from the San Juan River to the eastern section of the Navajo Nation, the southwestern portion of the Jicarilla Apache Nation and Gallup via 300 miles of pipeline. It’s scheduled to be completed by the end of 2029.

Another ongoing water project was allocated $10.7 million by Heinrich. That money is for the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Project, meant to provide reliable domestic water to communities in eastern New Mexico and Cannon Air Force Base.

The appropriations bill includes substantial funding for defense-related installations in New Mexico. Congress allocated $10 million to improve roads leading to and from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a nuclear waste storage facility in southeast New Mexico. It’s the first time since 2014 that federal money has been appropriated specifically to repair roads around WIPP, according to a news release from Heinrich’s office.

Defense-related clean up will get a boost with $1 million for Sandia National Labs, $278 million for clean up at Los Alamos National Lab and $420 million for clean-up at WIPP.

Tens of millions were also allocated for specific lab projects: $52.2 million for the Combined Radiation Environments for Survivability Testing project at Sandia, $20 million for the LANSCE Accelerator Modernization Project at Los Alamos and $5 million for the 22-D-513 Power Sources Capability project at Sandia.

After concerns last year that it would face funding cuts, the Santa Fe-based Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development was allocated $13.5 million.

Thanks to congressionally directed spending from the state’s senators and House representatives, law enforcement agencies from Farmington to Albuquerque to the New Mexico State Police will get funds ranging between $250,000 to over $1 million for such things as crime scene reconstruction equipment, expanded wireless capabilities, expanded forensics capabilities and narcotics identification equipment.

While smaller, a few allocations stood out for falling outside of the law enforcement, conservation and water infrastructure projects that made up a bulk of the congressionally directed spending.

The Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council will get $500,000 to collaborate with affiliated tribes on ethnographic studies on the Caja del Rio Plateau. Heinrich secured $350,000 for New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence to expand its youth gun violence prevention programs to reach more people in Albuquerque. In a similar vein, Luján secured $1 million for Albuquerque to expand its school-based violence intervention program for at-risk students.

The House passed its final set of appropriations bills Thursday, sending them on to the Senate, where they will need to pass before the end of the month to avoid another government shutdown. Those bills would fund the Pentagon and the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Education and Homeland Security. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security was voted on separately at Democrats' demand, according to Politico reporting, allowing legislators to voice concerns with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection operations.