First the good news - HB 169, the Public Expression Protection Act passed in House Consumer and Public Affairs yesterday and HB 35, Oil and Gas Setbacks passed this morning in House Health and Human Services. As always we are impressed by the patience and persistence required to break through filibuster and falsehoods to try to impose corporate accountability in New Mexico.
Now the bad - in a depressing display of brute force politics, House Agriculture passed HB 137, the Strategic Water Supply Act, despite admitted discomfort from lawmakers who lamented the fact that standards for treatment and water quality have not yet been set, and other more effective and efficient measures to address water quality - namely conservation and efficiency, which are always the most cost effective water security measures, are not getting the same attention and funding. As detailed in this article from Source NM, Representative Angelica Rubio stood up for her community despite the pressure, saying "From a moral standpoint, everything outside of the aquifer mapping piece is just something I fundamentally oppose.”
The fight moves next to House Energy and then to House Appropriations, so we need to continue putting pressure on our legislators to protect our water and prevent another public subsidy for the oil and gas industry. That fight continues tomorrow with two important related bills that need action today:
SB 178, THE PRODUCED WATER REUSE PROHIBITION AND ABANDONED WELLS FUND ACT, IS THE ANTIDOTE TO THIS MADNESS
SB 178, the Produced Water Reuse Prohibition and Abandoned Wells Fund Act will be heard tomorrow morning at 9:00AM in Senate Conservation. To make Public Comment come in person to Room 311 or join on zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82404382748.
Sponsored by Senator Harold Pope Jr, SB 178 comports with science to protect our water by:
1. prohibiting fracking waste reuse outside the oilfield, with the exception of research conducted in accredited laboratories, and2. assessing a fee per barrel of Produced Water to plug abandoned wells, a small price to begin addressing the significant costs that New Mexico is already paying to deal with the oil and gas industry's toxic waste.
The oil and gas industry is using New Mexico like its personal landfill, dumping more than one billion barrels of toxic liquid fracking waste underground each year, threatening aquifer contamination and earthquakes, and spilling indiscriminately and without penalty along the way, trucking tons of radioactive drill cuttings, sludge and contaminated trash to landfills across the state and abandoning thousands of leaking wells for the public to clean up at a cost of more than $8 billion dollars, wreaking havoc on our land, air, water and climate.
SB 178 is the antidote to the Strategic Water Supply, a small step towards accountability, demanding that polluters, not the public, pay to cleanup their toxic mess. Read the one pager here.
HB 311, THE RECLAIMED WATER ACT, ATTEMPTS TO MAKE AN END RUN AROUND ANY REGULATION OF REUSED FRACKING WASTE OUTSIDE THE OIL FIELD
HB 311, the Reclaimed Water Act, is an attempt to make an end run around the Water Quality Act and the Water Quality Control Commission by moving the regulation of so-called "Reclaimed" Produced Water outside normal oversight. Sponsored by Rep. Nathan Small, the Reclaimed Water Act, would remove any guardrails put on reuse of produced water from the Water Quality Control Commission.
The bill creates a new legal framework separate from the Water Quality Act to govern "reclaimed water" by newly created Reclaimed Water Authorities, giving these local authorities the power of oversight to develop standards and enforcement authority. Who would serve on the board of these new "Reclaimed Water Authorities"? The secretary of economic development or a designee in an advisory role, and the following voting members appointed by the local mayor or governing body of the municipality or county in the authority's jurisdiction:
(a) one economic development professional;(b) at least one professional who has worked for a reclaimed water producer;(c) at least one professional who has worked for a reclaimed water wholesaler;(d) one member who has worked with or for a water retailer; and(e) at least one professional with experience in environmental studies or environmental protection work.
The bill exempts this "certified reclaimed water" from all state laws for “wastewater and produced water,” a violation of the Water Quality Act, the Produced Water Act and the Hazardous Waste Act, and will put communities at risk of exposure to produced water toxicity when we know that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that the water can be safely cleaned!
The audacity of this proposal is stunning, a naked attempt to remove any scientific oversight and install fracking waste treatment industry insiders as de facto regulators of their own industry.
HB 311 will be heard in House Agriculture, also at 9:00AM. To make public comment go to Room 315 or join via zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87536227091.
You can call or email committee members with personalized messages opposing Rep. Small's bill:
Rep. Kristina Ortez, Chair, Office: 312B, Office Phone: 505 986-4840, Email: kristina.ortez@nmlegis.gov
Rep. Kathleen Cates, V. Chair, Office: 413F, Phone: 505 986-4432, Email: Kathleen.Cates@nmlegis.gov
Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, Office: 204B, Phone: 505 986-4210, Email: micaela.cadena@nmlegis.gov
Rep. Marian Matthews, Office: 206B, Phone: 505 986-4248, Email: marian.matthews@nmlegis.gov
Rep. Angelica Rubio, Office: 204B, Phone: 505 986-4210, Email: angelica.rubio@nmlegis.gov
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