This is a critique of the water-related special appropriations in House Bill 2, the 2025 General Appropriation Act that passed the House on February 24. The appropriations emphasize treating brackish water as a niche water supply rather than seeking broad water security in the face of scarce, shrinking water supplies.
What is Water Security?
The United Nations published a practical definition of water security that is applicable to New Mexico’s situation.
Water Security Laws Implementation: Underfunded and Stalled
New Mexico’s water, cultural, and economic security would be substantially boosted if the State Engineer and Interstate Stream Commission vigorously implemented three 21st Century additions to New Mexico water law. All three are essential to New Mexico’s adaptation to having much less water. The Legislature, having passed these important policies and authorities into state water law, must appropriate resources to the Office of the State Engineer and the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission to accelerate their full implementation. This graphic summarizes the need. Water Can’t Wait!
Badwater Development is the Governor’s & House Priority
As shown in the bar chart below, the largest special appropriation of non-recurring money for one-time projects is $40 million for incentives to public sector developers of brackish water for hi-tech, high water use industries like solar panel manufacturing and chip factories.
This is a poor choice for top priority. Why? Because it can’t be done quickly and safely by the private sector. The treatment technology exists but necessary knowledge about brackish water resources does not exist. The little we know about brackish groundwater that could be extracted without impacting potable groundwater is far from sufficient for development.
The Environment Department’s August 2024 feasibility study draft report falsely presented the expensive and damaging failures of Sandoval County-funded attempted development of Rio Puerto confined aquifer brackish water as a success. Two test wells produced pressurized hot, highly corrosive brackish water laden with heavy metals and radioactive particles. Leaks due to rapid corrosion have escaped containment. The toxic corrosive water is sure to destroy the steel casing in a century or so. The author’s public comments pointed out the truth; that false report was omitted from NMED’s final report. Yet the report says the Lower and Middle Rio Grande are the best options for brackish water development.
My understanding of the Middle Rio Grande brackish water resources – beyond a careful study of the Sandoval County study’s engineering reports – is that poor quality water exists in both deep and shallow aquifers.
For example, the Middle Santa Fe Group aquifer under the Southwest Mesa of Albuquerque – the vast former undeveloped area of the Atrisco Land Grant subject to the Santolina Master Plan – contains water. It’s deep and bad quality. However, wells there are dismal producers or are essentially dry because the Middle Santa Fe Group aquifer sediments are not conducive to groundwater flow into wells.
In the Lower Rio Grande, New Mexico State University Civil Engineering faculty have demonstrated the technology to treat brackish water. Faculty members say that the next step is to complete expensive and time-consuming geophysical studies and test wells to decide where the brackish water can be extracted and the concentrated waste injected for disposal without damage to fresh water or brackish water reserves. This is an essential part of due diligence best performed with state oversight and quality control given the risk and consequences.
Legitimate Water Security Agenda Partially Funded or Not at All
Because of the need to map brackish water aquifers as part of fundamental aquifer research and monitoring, House Bill 2 allocates $19 million for the Bureau of Geology’s Aquifer Mapping Program, a needed downpayment toward accelerating completion of this $175 million, 12-years-to-completion-when-funded project. NMED water and wastewater utility operator workforce development is also an explicit part of the $2.8 million appropriation to NMED for small water systems regionalization to gain economies of scale and share scarce skilled labor.
No other water security investments are adequate to face our severe water resources sustainability challenges. The Water Data Act is not mentioned in any of the House non-recurring appropriations for the OSE/ISC even though the data they collect and own are scattered. , with some in data sets and legacy applications in disarray. Some data sets are in disarray and very poor quality, such as the locations of wells.
OSE & ISC have a more difficult job than other two Water Data Act Directing Agencies because their data is so necessary for management and planning, yet so decentralized, existing as images, paper, and spreadsheets. Official water use estimates in lieu of measurements are untimely and incomplete. Yet good quality data are prerequisites to good planning.
Two sequential data-related prerequisites for regional water planning are not funded. It’s the ISC’s responsibility by law to provide the data the regions need for their regional water security planning. Neither the OSE/ISC’s basic work to make good water data public assessable nor the ISC’s work to package the datasets and models regional water planning councils uses are funded. Without funding, the agencies say this work can’t be pursued or in the case of compact compliance, can’t be done as well or as quickly.
Senate Funding Requested
The Water Advocates are requesting the Senate add three appropriations of non-recurring funding totaling $6.9 million to the State Engineer and Interstate Stream Commission for these purposes.
- $2.4 million for ISC block grants of $250,000 each for nine regional water planning councils to self-organize and prepare a work plan with an application for state funding. The total includes $150,000 for ISC administrative expenses for this Water Security Planning Act grant program.
- $2.5 million to fully fund the state-information-technology-process-approved real-time water use measurement and reporting application. Rational water planning is not possible without reliable water use data. The Governor and the House cut $2.5 million of the $3.0 million needed.
- $2 million to stop Middle Rio Grande’s large chronic water overuse and maintain New Mexico’s compliance with the Rio Grande Compact debt limits. Excess depletions of water in the Middle Rio Grande have deprived water users south of Elephant Butte Dam of 155,000 acre-feet of their rightful supply since 2018, an average of 22,100 acre-feet per year. NM, by its failure to take this crisis seriously, its passive disregard, is inviting the Supreme Court of the United States to decide the Middle Rio Grande’s water future. That is a particularly bad result of allowing water mismanagement to continue.
The graphic explains what and why.
Information Available for Download
To show how the House budget allocates non-recurring funding to one-time water programs and needs, see this table of the appropriations sorted from largest to smallest and the bar chart above. You can also download the flyer.
Call to Action
Please use the Legislative Toolkit accessed from the Announcements section of our home page to contact your state Senator and members of the Senate Finance Committee.
Tell them advancing New Mexico’s water and economic security needs funding, the $6.9 request to avoid yet another year’s delay in really getting started.
Water Can’t Wait.