Errata Compounds WATR Alliance Misrepresentations

On April 7th, 2026 New Energy Economy and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a Joint Motion to Show Cause arguing that the WATR Alliance, in its petition seeking authorization to reuse and discharge produced water, had fabricated multiple quotations supporting their petition by alleging that the quotations were extracts from peer reviewed scientific papers. The quotations misrepresented the state of the science and the conclusions reached by the authors of these studies WATR claimed they had come from. Today we filed our response.

The Motion was related to the following portion of petition page 9:

Our Joint Motion to Show Cause asked the WQCC to Order the WATR Alliance to explain the quotes and further asked the WQCC to issue an Order finding that the WATR Alliance has violated its duty of candor to the tribunal and to dismiss the petition in its entirety.

WATR Alliance now admits that quotes in their petition were not from the peer-reviewed articles cited, but from an unsworn verbal statement by Dr. Zach Stoll from NM Produced Water Research Consortium at a legislative committee hearing. After filing the Motion to Show Cause related to the quotes mentioned above, the WATR Alliance filed an errata on Friday, April 10th, stating the following:

“The Petition contains minor clerical errors relating to the ordering and numbering of certain footnotes.

The WATR Alliance corrects those errors as follows: 

14 February 7, 2026, New Mexico House Agriculture, Acequias & Water Committee Hearing (testimony of Dr. Zach Stoll), available at https://sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00293/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20260209/-1/78451; see Tarazona, Y.; Wang, H. B.; Hightower, M.; Xu, P.; Zhang, Y. Benchmarking Produced Water Treatment Strategies for Non-Toxic Effluents: Integrating Thermal Distillation with Granular Activated Carbon and Zeolite Post-Treatment, J. Hazard. Mater., 478, 135549 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.135549.

15 Id. (testimony of Dr. Zach Stoll); see Wijekoon, S.; Tarazona, Y.; Hightower, M.; Wang, H.; Xu, P.; Zhang, Y. Comprehensive Cytotoxicity Assessment of Treated Produced Water from Thermal Distillation Using Human Cell Lines, Ecotoxicol. Environ. Saf., 302, 118726 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2025.118726.

16 Id. (testimony of Dr. Zach Stoll); see Senanayake, P. S.; Zhang, Y.; Edirisooriya, E. M. N. T.; Lopez, A. A.; Smith, D.; Xu, P.; Wang, H. Plant Growth, Ion Dynamics, and Microbial Communities in Soils Irrigated with Treated Produced Water for Sustainable Agriculture, Sci. Total Environ., 1001, 180520.

17 Id. (testimony of Dr. Zach Stoll).”

The errata compounds WATR Alliance misrepresentations:

• It does not appear that this was a mere clerical error or a misordering of footnotes. The actual source of the quotes were omitted while peer-reviewed studies were cited, giving false assurance that the authors of the peer-reviewed scientific papers made those conclusive statements. When citing to a direct quote the name of the source is the proper citation. Misattributions of direct quotes are not “minor clerical errors relating to the ordering and numbering of certain footnotes.” They materially impact the weight given to an argument.

• The errata perpetuates the material misrepresentations made to the WQCC by again including citations to the peer-reviewed studies as additional sources supporting Dr. Stoll’s statements, a representation that we contest. None of the studies cited conclude that their “findings indicate that produced water can be treated to a non-toxic level in a real-world setting” as Dr. Stoll said in his unsworn verbal statement to the Committee. Each article cited concludes that further study is necessary.

• If the WATR Alliance inadvertently forgot to leave Dr. Stoll’s name out of the footnotes it had every opportunity to file an errata after its initial petition was submitted on March 3rd, but it did not do so until our Motion called attention to the misrepresentations.

  
  

What do the cited papers actually state:

1. Direct Quote: “No measurable toxic effects on aquatic species.” (Petition, p. 9 citation in footnote 14) WATR cites a study titled “Benchmarking Produced Water Treatment Strategies for Non-Toxic Effluents: Integrating Thermal Distillation with Granular Activated Carbon and Zeolite Post-Treatment” published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. The study actually states “with the exception of V. fischeri (Fig. 3-A), which showed effects of <20% at 100% effluent, the adverse effects determined on all other organisms were not higher than 10%.” p.9, and concludes “Implementing GAC and zeolite post-treatments, both individually and in tandem, improved overall water quality and reduced the adverse effects on aquatic test organisms.” p13. (emphasis added).

2. Direct quote” “No toxic effects across three human cell lines.” (Petition, p. 9) Citing a study titled "Comprehensive Cytotoxicity Assessment of Treated Produced Water from Thermal Distillation Using Human Cell Lines” published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. While the study did find that “thermally distilled PW [produced water], further polished with GAC and zeolite, did not elicit adverse cellular responses related to cell viability, membrane integrity, oxidative stress, apoptosis, or endocrine activity,” the authors did not make the above blanket statement, and the second line of the Abstract of the study explicitly states: “comprehensive studies assessing the impact of treated PW exposure on human health are still lacking.” The study concludes that “further development of thermal distillation and post treatment technologies is warranted to mitigate potential VOCs [volatile organic compounds] carryover and ensure consistent product water quality.” p10.

3. Direct quote: “No adverse impact on native plants, soils, or soil microbial communities.” (Petition, p. 9 citation in footnote 16.) WATR cites to a study titled “Plant Growth, Ion Dynamics, and Microbial Communities in Soils Irrigated with Treated Produced Water for Sustainable Agriculture” published in Science of The Total Environment. In fact, the authors of this study made no such blanket statement and instead conclude that “This nine-month greenhouse study advances our understanding of plant growth, ion dynamics, and microbial community responses in soils irrigated with tPW [treated produced water] of varying salinities… Future extended field application across successive growing seasons is recommended to further validate its long-term viability and investigate the potential progressive accumulation of residual salts and trace organic constituents in tPW on soil physicochemical characteristics and microbial dynamics, thereby influencing soil health and crop productivity.” pg. 13.

4. Direct quote “Taken together, these findings indicate that produced water can be treated to a non-toxic level in a real-world setting.” (Petition, p. 9) Per footnote 17 in the petition the source of this quote is the plant growth study referenced above. However, a search of the research paper, again, does not turn up this quote. None of the peer-reviewed papers included in WATR’s Petition can be read to wholeheartedly endorse the current ability to treat produce water to a “non-toxic level” in a “real-world setting.”

Hope to see many of you at the WQCC meeting tomorrow morning, 9:00AM at the Roundhouse in Room 307!