A New Mexico lawmaker prefiled three bills aiming to close exceptions for the oil and gas industry’s disposal of contaminated water from federal laws, seek more data on water use and pollution, and potentially limit oil and gas activity near school property.
Rep. Debra Sariñana (D-Albuquerque) said her background as a former teacher, and presentations on a 2023 lawsuit on behalf of people living around oil and gas hotspots in New Mexico, pushed her to act.
“Nobody’s really watching what’s happening, and nobody is holding anyone accountable,” Sariñana said.
The three bills would amend the state Oil and Gas Act.
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Only one would allocate money to the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD), which has a division responsible for overseeing the oil and gas industry.
House Bill 30 would mostly ban oil and gas operators from using fresh water.
The bill also requires annual water use reports from oil and gas producers, documenting volume of fresh water, recycled produced water and treated produced water used in oil and gas operations.
Those reports would be sent to the Oil Conservation Division in the EMNRD. State regulators could note if the reports are incomplete or deficient. All reports would be published on the state’s website, according to the current version of the bill.
House Bill 31 adds fines for oil or liquid waste spills and requires state regulators to make rules on preventing accidents.
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The bill would regulate disposal of produced water under the Safe Drinking Water Act, closing a federal loophole that exempts hydraulic fracturing from the law when enacted in 1974.
HB 31 would use the fines to help plug dry and abandoned oil wells. It requires operators to give public notification for people living within two miles of any spill. The proposal also requires notice to any sovereign tribal nation in New Mexico with landwithin 10 miles of a spill.
The bill allocates $750,000 to allow EMNRD to hire five employees to carry out the work.
House Bill 32 would establish “Children’s Health Protection Zones,” add additional penalties for polluting in those areas.
The zones would include a one-mile setback from school property, limiting how close oil and gas production could be from schools.
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HB 32 seeks to ban that activity within those zones after 2028, except under very limited exceptions. If the current version passes, it would enact more stringent protocols for detecting leaks and giving public notification around schools when that occurs.
Sariñana is vice chair on the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources committee, where she said testimony during the interim showed her the gaps in cleanup of abandoned oil and gas wells. She also heard concerns about issues reporting on freshwater use and pollution.
It’s not clear if the bills will make the call, which is set by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, but Sariñana said time was short to address the health and resource concerns.
Lawsuit: State allowance on oil and gas violates New Mexico Constitution
“We need to hold oil and gas more accountable than we ever have before,” she said. “For our kids’ health, for the people who live right by the extraction sites.”
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People living in high-production oil and gas areas in the Four Corners and the southeast portion of the state are calling on the state to make a change in court. The lawsuit, filed in May 2023, includes individual families and environmental organizations suing New Mexico top officials, state agencies and rulemaking bodies.
The complaint claims that the state of New Mexico failed to enforce pollution laws, violating a duty laid out in a 1971 amendment in the state constitution. It further says state action allowing more oil and gas production and failing to address pollution is discrimination against Indigenous people, youth and communities surrounded by oil and gas.
Sariñana’s bill proposals are a good start, said Gail Evans, the attorney representing the plaintiffs.
“In the end, we need setbacks, not just around schools, but around where people live and work and get their health care,” Evans said in an interview. “But this is a good first step in terms of protecting our children. Likewise, with the other bills, these are really good steps to begin to protect our land and our water from these spills.”
The Garcia Subaru Pet Pics segment highlights New Mexico Living viewers’ pets. Friday’s pet of the day is Twiggs. She is an 8-month-old foster fail who was adopted from Watermelon Mountain Ranch in January by Jessica Morning. Twiggs was named for her love of sticks. She spends her days getting into things she shouldn’t, annoying her three rescue siblings, and barking at things that are not there.
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Drier air will move in but it will still be relatively muggy and warm. See the latest conditions at KOB.com/Weather.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Drier air will move in Friday but it will still be hot and relatively muggy with some spotty storms and partly cloudy conditions.
Temperatures will reach the triple digits in southern New Mexico, except for Ruidoso and Silver City. The Four Corners will see 80s and 90s. Red River will get to around 75° in the northern mountains.
A greater chance of storms is coming this weekend.
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Meteorologist Kira Miner shares all the details in her full forecast in the video above.
New Mexico has joined the America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge, a national partnership effort to conserve and restore freshwater resources. President Joe Biden announced the challenge in April as part of the Earth Week celebrations. The goal is to “protect, restore, and reconnect 8 million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of our nation’s rivers […]
New Mexico has joined the America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge, a national partnership effort to conserve and restore freshwater resources.
President Joe Biden announced the challenge in April as part of the Earth Week celebrations. The goal is to “protect, restore, and reconnect 8 million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of our nation’s rivers and streams by 2030,” according to a press release from April.
White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory explained, during a visit to Albuquerque on Thursday, that New Mexico’s waterways will receive more focus.. A map behind her showed areas of the state where waterways are no longer protected under the Clean Water Act due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Sackett decision. This includes ephemeral waterways as well as places like the Jemez River that run dry before connecting with larger waterways.
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The Sackett decision led American Rivers to list New Mexico’s waterways as the “most endangered river” this year. In addition to the impacts of the Sackett decision, New Mexico is one of the states without its own surface water permitting system.
Mallory said that coordinated efforts are key in areas like New Mexico where the impacts of the Sackett decision are so great.
“New Mexico is doing a lot all by itself. But having the ability to get additional focus or sending in additional resources as they’re available, is really going to be a really important part to the success,” she said.
Joining the America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge does not necessarily mean more funding will be available to New Mexico. However, Mallory said it might make New Mexico more competitive in the future as it pursues federal resources. She said that the federal government, knowing that there’s already groundwork being done in New Mexico to restore and protect waters, may see funding projects in the state as having a greater potential impact compared to some other parts of the country.
“We are all working together to make sure we can continue to protect water,” Tanya Trujillo, the deputy state engineer, said.
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She said that New Mexico is facing many challenges with water, including both drought and flooding.
“We have to be able to take care and manage our waters during all of the conditions that we may see,” Trujillo said.
The states, local governments, Tribal entities, businesses and nonprofits that have joined the challenge all agree to a set of commitments to restore and connect wetlands and waters.
One of the original members of the partnership was the Navajo Nation.
“To Navajos and all Indigenous people, water is a sacred element,” President Buu Nygren said in a statement in April. “We in the Southwest, and especially Navajos, are aware daily how precious water is to our life, our livestock, our crops, wildlife and the natural world all around us. We are pleased to join the Biden-Harris Administration in this initiative.”
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Some of the other partners include Colorado, Amigos Bravos, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Audubon Society, New Mexico Wild, Patagonia, the Rio Grande International Study Center and Trout Unlimited.
“But New Mexico waters are in peril. We are in the eye of a perfect storm. We are in an arid state to begin with. And climate change is hitting us hard. Today 66 percent of our state is in drought conditions,” Tannis Fox with the Western Environmental Law Center said during the event in Albuquerque.
She said that while the majority of waterways in New Mexico do not run year round, they play important roles.
Speakers highlighted how contamination released into ephemeral waterways can jeopardize the water quality in acequias and even in waters that remain protected under the Clean Water Act.
New Mexico’s participation in the challenge complements actions that are outlined in the 50-year water plan unveiled in January.
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“We’re going to be able to continue to implement our water quality protection programs, both surface water and groundwater, develop the necessary regulations that it’s going to take to make sure we can do those right and to do things like take care of our watersheds,” Trujillo told NM Political Report.
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