New Mexico
New Mexico to receive $18.9M in federal money for ‘forever chemical' detection • Source New Mexico
Big check energy at the Roundhouse.
National and state environmental officials celebrated a $18.9 million federal grant for most of New Mexico’s water systems to use over the next two years to detect “forever chemicals,” in the state’s drinking water.
State officials say they hope to pull down a total of $47.2 million in the next five years in additional rounds of federal grants. The first two years will focus on detection and subsequent phases will address removal of Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS for short) in drinking water.
More than 496 systems serving 231,000 New Mexicans are eligible for the funding, state officials said.
A check of this size will help the state “fund its way” out of pollution, said New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney from the Roundhouse Rotunda.
“These forever chemicals will not be a forever legacy. We will address these chemicals and New Mexico will be the leader in the way we do that,” he said.
What are PFAS?
This class of synthetic chemicals are ubiquitous, present in the blood of most people in the U.S. They are toxic and extremely hard to break down. There are nearly 15,000 types of these chemicals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
EPA looks to limit toxic ‘forever chemicals.’ Here’s what New Mexicans should know
Their resistance to breaking down in sunlight, water, oil and fire over time makes them useful in fabrics, nonstick cookware, food packaging, in our carpets, clothes and firefighting foam. It also means they build up in our bodies, linked to cancer, heart and liver problems, developmental damage, vaccine resistance and other health issues.
Despite decades of rising concern about the dangers of these chemicals, the EPA only implemented drinking water limits for only the five most-common, releasing the final rule in April 2024.
These drinking water limits for the two most-studied and common chemicals – PFOA and PFOS – is 4 parts per trillion, the lowest limit the EPA believes to be technologically possible. The new rule requires water systems to be compliant by 2029.
The size of the problem will require billions of dollars in spending, with an estimated cost of $1.5 billion to implement the drinking water rules.
And that’s just the low estimate. The U.S. military estimated PFAS clean-up just on military bases and surrounding communities to be at least $31 billion.
New Mexico context
As the nation grapples with the reality of these contaminants’ omnipresence – in rainwater, in our bodies, in animals – New Mexico water systems are already struggling.
In 2021, the environment department found PFAS in at least 15 water systems in New Mexico, according to tests performed with federal assistance.
The most impacted communities are in Curry County and Otero County, according to that data. That’s also where PFAS plumes from firefighting foam infiltrated the groundwater for decades next to military bases. The state tested more than three dozen cities and water systems for 28 compounds. Only five compounds are subject to the proposed limits.
A Clovis dairy had to euthanize more than 3,600 cows after Cannon Air Force base contaminated water sources infiltrated wells on the dairy.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury described hearing about the moment, saying that the disaster made PFAS not just an economic issue, but a personal one for New Mexico.”
“It’s a big day for New Mexico. it’s a big day for families, it’s a big day for ranchers, and it’s a big day in our fight to really tackle the chemical contaminants that affect our communities,” Stansbury said.
Rebecca Roose, acting as the infrastructure czar in the governor’s office said addressing PFAS is part of a larger plan to address water scarcity in the arid state.
“When we talk about our water being polluted and contaminated and not safe, there’s few things we take more seriously than that,” Roose said. “Perhaps right up there with it is protecting the water so that it never becomes polluted, contaminated or unsafe, because there is not a drop of water to spare.”
The federal grant is funded from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which contained at least $9 billion earmarked for addressing PFAS contamination.
This is the first grant of its kind in the region, said Earthea Nance, who oversees EPA Region 6, which includes Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Nance said there are no set plans for enforcement for holding PFAS polluters accountable in Region 6, but said that could change with more information.
“I don’t want to say no, because we mean, tomorrow, we could start putting a plan together,” she said.
Nance said the EPA Region 6 office is relying on state officials to help determine how large the enforcement response will be.
“Because we’re giving this money to the state of (New) Mexico, some of that will fall on them in terms of assessing the situation so that we can then figure out how to identify enforcement issues,” Nance said.
How does the program work?
The grant has the unwieldy name; Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities Program (EC-SDC). Name aside, it will allow for New Mexico’s environment leaders to spend up to $18.9 million over the next two years.
The program’s first phase will oversee water sampling, creating a statewide database and outreach to water systems, according to environment department officials.
Public water systems with 10,000 or fewer connections, or communities where the median household income falls between $56,828 – $75,770 are eligible to opt in, using this form.
“The great thing about this grant is we will be hiring and controlling a lot of the contract work and actually implementing it, which does take a little bit of a relief off the water systems,” said Kelsey Rader, the deputy division director for Water Protection with the state.
Rader said further federal money, two years from now, would offer more than testing, but also water treatment.
“That’s what’s really special about this grant is that it covers everything from the testing, from the design to the actual remediation, in paying for the necessary upgrades,” she said.
When asked if the $18.9 million is close to addressing the scope of PFAS in New Mexican’s water systems, Rader said the department doesn’t have a date set on when they’ll be able to test every New Mexico system.
“It’s difficult to say when that’s going to happen,” she said.
More work to do
Kenney said the state is still working to address current contamination, noting the environment department recently sent a letter asking for the federal government to commit to clean up water surrounding the Cannon Air Force base, not just beneath it.
A contentious court fight continues on, as the New Mexico Environment Department is still attempting to require the U.S. Air Force to follow state testing and treatment protocols over contamination at Cannon Air Force base. The case has stretched on for years in federal district court and now is in the 10th Circuit Appeals Courts.
Battle between New Mexico and US Air Force to track toxic chemicals drags on
The state is currently in mediation with the U.S. Air Force over the litigation and has been for over a year, said Bruce Baizel, the compliance and enforcement director for the environment department. The parties just extended that mediation period through late June.
The $18.9 million for clean-up would go farther, if people’s contact with PFAS in everyday items were reduced, said Kenney.
“In our legislative session, I’d like to see a bill introduced that bans PFAS but for essential uses, like medical devices,” he said. “But if given the choice of having a toxic chemical in your house that then becomes a toxic chemical in your body, I would choose not to have it in my house, or my body.”
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After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.
It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.
Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.
Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:
- Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
- Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
- New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).
What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.
That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.
With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.
New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.
But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.
Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.
What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility
SANTA FE, N.M. (KFOX14/CBS4) – The New Mexico Department of Health says it will continue to recommend the full schedule of childhood vaccines.
State officials announced the move Tuesday, directly defying a new federal policy that scaled back routine immunization guidance.
The announcement comes after U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS), under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., reduced the number of vaccines it recommends for all children.
The New Mexico Department of Health stated the federal changes were “not based on new scientific evidence or safety data.”
“New Mexico will not follow the federal government in walking away from decades of proven public health practice,” said Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. “Our recommendations remain unchanged.”
State health officials sought to reassure parents, emphasizing that vaccines remain widely available and covered by insurance.
“We know this is confusing for parents, but the science is clear: vaccines are safe, effective, and save children’s lives,” said Dr. Miranda Durham, chief medical officer for NMDOH.
All childhood vaccinations will continue to be covered under programs like Medicaid and the federal Vaccines for Children Program.
The state encourages parents to consult their healthcare providers using the American Academy of Pediatrics’ immunization schedule.
RECOMMENDED: CDC cuts childhood vaccine list, sparking healthcare professionals’ concerns
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