近距离内射合集

Last month local columnist Jeff Apodaca wrote an important article on the economic benefits of brackish water. This is an issue that demands careful and immediate analysis.

It is true that New Mexico sits on billions of acre feet of brackish water. Studies are underway to determine how much water and what will be involved in accessing it and purifying it to drinking water standards. The Strategic Water Supply Act signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has now committed $75 million in pilot projects with an ambitious goal of generating 100,000-acre feet by 2028 using state money, private investment and user fees. As Apodaca in the Aug. 22 Sunday Journal pointed out, we desperately need this new water infrastructure, and to do so we need to move well beyond pilot projects, but costs are likely to be considerably higher.

It is estimated that an initial fully publicly funded statewide brackish water system would cost about $2 billion to $4 billion, including transport and disposal costs. So, what would we get for $2 billion to $4 billion? A 25 billion gallon per day desalination plant could produce 27,900 acre-feet of usable water per year. That means that four plants would produce about 112,000 acre-feet per year. If we get plants online soon, what could we do with some 100,000-plus acre-feet annually of treated water? That amount is only 3% of the 3 million-acre feet New Mexico uses annually.

Albuquerque uses about 40,000 acre-feet a year for consumptive use. A logical approach would be to use this treated brackish water for municipal growth, industrial development, high value uses and to recharge depleted groundwater reserves. What it should not be used for is agriculture, particularly high-water guzzlers like alfalfa and filling of reservoirs where it would rapidly evaporate. A system to treat and use brackish water must go hand-in-hand with conservation measures, including infrastructure repairs, watershed restoration and a phase-out of high-water crops.

Texas is ahead of the game here. They have 59 desalination facilities that generate about 176,013 acre-feet, many using salt water which is more costly to clean.

New Mexico has the money to fund this process. We can build some of this infrastructure using our oil wealth. The state presently gets about $13 billion annually from oil revenues, some $7.5 billion goes to our General Fund. We can afford $1 billion to $4 billion in brackish water investment over time. Some of those funds can be used to leverage private investment, allowing for more facilities, but we need to be careful.

Only New Mexico should own the right to our brackish water. We must avoid giving private firms rights to wells, treatment plants, pipelines and long-term contracts that would allow them to economically control our critical resource. This is where the battle is going to be fought and our Legislature needs to be educated to avoid selling out to industry. It may be early in the game, but we need legislation in place. We need something like a simple principle encoded in legislation that reads 鈥渘o appropriation, contract, grant or expenditure of state funds for development of brackish underground groundwater shall convey permanent ownership or exclusive control of the underlying water groundwater resource to a private entity.鈥�

Only New Mexico should own our future water supply. At a minimum we also would need limited duration licenses, public ownership of infrastructure, mandatory monitoring, withdrawal caps and certainly legislative approval before water can be exported from New Mexico.

Apodaca has an exciting but grandiose vision of a huge brackish water industry that would fill our reservoirs and export huge amounts of brackish water to other states. That would involve extensive private investment and is a dangerous proposition. In fact, we need to retain as much control over this process as we can. Private industry does have the knowledge and the engineering expertise, capacity and capital. But we should contract with them very carefully. We need to own and control the core treatment infrastructure.

The future of brackish water treatment is very promising. It should be actualized carefully for the benefit of all New Mexicans. Our water problems are not going to go away. Treated brackish water along with conservation measures will help us sustain a quality of life as we adjust to changing environmental circumstances and it must be prioritized.

Judith Polich is a retired attorney, a New Mexico resident and a climate change columnist. Her website is: .  She can be reached at judith.polich@gmail.com.