A Water Redux on NMiF

First thing’s first: Let’s acknowledge the mercy of rainfall across broad swaths of the state. The central mountain chain, the Rio Grande Valley, the northern mountains and much of Western New Mexico have all clocked measurable amounts in recent weeks.   
It’s about time. 

But let’s also agree that the water picture here is far more nuanced and deep-seated than what clouds too full to hold back and afternoon thunderstorms — even the torrential kind — could ever solve alone.  

On this week’s episode, we’ll explore some of that complexity by revisiting a few previously aired stories all connected in one way or another by the challenges we face with two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen.  

Back in May, the U.S. Supreme Court closed the book on a 13-year street fight that came to be known as Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado. The justices’ order, which flowed from the 1938 Rio Grande Compact, at long last settled how the states must divvy up water below Elephant Butte Reservoir — among other provisions. Not long after the decision came down, Host Nash Jones spoke with Danielle Prokop, a journalist who has followed the case for years.  

We also have Nash’s May 1 chat with New Mexico Environment Department Secretary James Kenney about the state’s efforts to demand clean-up of and accountability around PFAS — the so-called forever chemicals that have poisoned our soil and water for decades.  

Much of this week’s show excavates an issue regular NMiF viewers will be plenty familiar with: the push to expand the legal uses for fracking wastewater beyond the state’s oil fields. The idea has powerful friends — outgoing Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham among them.  

Driving the bus for the let’s-do-it crowd is an oil and gas industry-backed group called the Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance — cheekily acronymed, the “WATR Alliance.” On June 9, Capital and Main reporter and In-Focus correspondent Jerry Redfern sat with Matthias Sayer, the group’s vice president, to dig into why the WATR ALLIANCE says using so-called “produced” water in a host of new contexts is safe — and why it should happen now.  

There’s plenty of opposition to the idea, too.  

Tannis Fox of the Western Environmental Law Center has stood against unleashing this wastewater since whispers of the idea began floating on the wind. On May 22, Fox came in to lay out her concerns. 

We’ll be back next week with fresh news and analysis and, hopefully, a little more wear and tear on our wiper blades and raincoats.  

-Jeff Proctor, Executive Producer