New Mexico is facing another attempt to create regulations allowing the use of treated produced water from hydraulic fracturing outside the state’s oil and gas fields.
The New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission plans another meeting in May to consider a recent petition to allow the treatment, industrial reuse and discharge of the waste. It is the third such attempt to win approval of the Commission to allow the reuse of produced water. The Commission voted 11 months ago to prohibit the use of produced water finding there was “insufficient evidence” at the time to allow the practice.
The Commission recently heard hours of public comments after the petition was filed by the Water Access Treatment and Reuse Alliance. The Alliance describes itself as a “powerful new trade association” with a goal of uniting a diverse coalition of stakeholders committed to furthering water treatment, reuse and conservation across the Southwest.
WATR claims researchers have observed “no measurable toxic effects on aquatic species, no toxic effects across three different human cell lines, and no adverse impact on native plants, soils, or soil microbial communities” in pilot projects, citing three separate studies for the quotation.
The group has also run into opposition from environmental advocacy groups who accuse the supporters of making exaggerations of scientific findings on the safety of reusing the treated produced water. The allegations include “wrongly attributing statements about produced water to peer-reviewed scientific studies in their arguments to the commission,” reported the Santa Fe New Mexican.
The environmental advocacy groups also claim Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a support of proposed reuse of produced water, is pressuring the Water Quality Control Commission to give approval.
“In my experience as a commission observer for more than 25 years … there has never been a rulemaking process that has engendered so much conflict or that has so threatened the integrity of this body,” said attorney Tannis Fox, representing Western Environmental Law Center and some other groups that oppose the change. “This issue is tearing the state apart, and, in my opinion, unnecessarily so.”