We have some big updates on Blackstone, Project Jupiter, and Groundhog Day at the WQCC

The Hearing Examiners have agreed with intervenors that Blackstone's acquisition of $400 million PNM shares without PRC permission warrants its own hearing, which has been set to begin on April 30th. Most importantly, the Hearing Examiners have vacated the prior hearing schedule because they agreed with intervenors that the acquisition cannot move forward until an investigative hearing concludes and a determination is made as to whether Blackstone and PNM violated the law with their merger related stock transaction and, crucially, if they did so, what that means for the proposed merger. 

We applaud everyone who has raised their voices to insist that Blackstone and PNM are not above the law. We invite you to join us in continuing to raise community awareness about the implications of a Blackstone utility for New Mexicans.

If you're up for it, the next PRC Open Meeting where you can speak about the Blackstone case is tomorrow morning (March 26th) at 10:00AM in the Wendell Chino Building in Santa Fe. There will be open meetings every two weeks where you can speak.

A PROCEDURAL VICTORY IN THE FIGHT TO OPPOSE PROJECT JUPITER:BECAUSE OF ALL YOUR COMMENTS A PUBLIC HEARING WILL BE HELD.YOUR ACTION MATTERS.

Today it was officially announced that the Air Quality Bureau recommended a public hearing be held on the Project Jupiter air pollution permits because of "the volume of comments and "significant public interest." That public hearing comes with a 90 day delay on the deadline for the permit decisions to be made until July 21st, 2026. While the air permit applications are pending, no construction on the polluting "micro" grids can proceed, but we know that site preparation has already commenced and construction on the data center and other buildings can also continue, and Project Jupiter owners continue their efforts to try to sell their giant polluting project by misleading the public about jobs and benefits that they will never see. 

On March 20th the Third Judicial Court rejected the Motion to Dismiss a legal case filed by Southern New Mexico residents who are questioning the legality of the Doña Ana County Commission's approval process of the Industrial Revenue Bonds for the hyperscale data center project. The Judge in the case rejected the Motion to Dismiss, but also declined to grant an injunction against further construction and has allowed the Project Jupiter developers to intervene in the case. In the process of that hearing, testimony revealed that the jobs numbers Project Jupiter developers are touting publicly differ from the numbers circulating privately. We are not surprised. That is a common data center industry practice.

The public hearing is an important development, but the Air Quality Bureau could have required the applicants to properly refile the two separate air permits as one pollution source and they have not done so. NMED continues to keep the door open for the unlawfully divided pollution sources to help them avoid stringent environmental regulation when they do not have to do so. It is critical that the public is loudly and actively engaged to prevent the construction of these polluting "mega"grids that together will be the equivalent of building a new coal plant in southern New Mexico. If you want to be actively engaged in the community group opposing Project Jupiter click here to sign up.

WHILE WE WERE ALL FOCUSED ON BLACKSTONE & PROJECT JUPITER,WATR ALLIANCE FILED A NEW FRACKING WASTE REUSE PETITION

Yes, its like we're living in a hellish version of Groundhog Day. As we have said many times, we know that the oil and gas industry is not going to stop trying to get permission to dump their waste on New Mexico. Not only does deep-well injection of their oceans of toxic waste cause earthquakes, blow-outs and groundwater contamination, but the transport and disposal is expensive, and now it is infecting their production wells, causing further declines in extraction and profits. For them that is all that matters.

In Texas they got permission to dump fracking waste onto land and into rivers. And they even won protection from liability so that they don't face any risk if that waste poisons the people and ecosystems downriver. That is exactly what they hope to accomplish here, with the help of the Governor and other reuse proponents that have already tried and failed to circumvent the law and violate the due process rights of New Mexicans in their effort to force this through.

The latest petition, filed on March 3rd, seeks to rush a new rulemaking hearing during 2026 but:

1. The petition is incomplete on its face. It includes a table of about 400 contaminants, but leaves the numeric standards blank. The WATR Alliance states that it intends to amend the petition with the substantive details later. It further continues to ignore the fact that there are more than 1400 potentially toxic contaminants that have been identified in produced water, most of which have not even been evaluated to identify safe levels for human health. It is important to remember that even a substance present at minuscule, non-detect levels can still severely impact living things.

   
   

   One pilot study that the WATR Alliance is excited about shows that an energy intensive treatment train can process 30-45 barrels per day, but it still resulted in elevated levels of something called 1,2-dicholorethane, which can cause cancer, and ammoniacal nitrogen concentrations that can lead to root damage and stunt plant growth over time. The paper states in its conclusion "The absence of regulatory criteria for many of the detected compounds requires a comprehensive assessment of the purified PW's suitability for beneficial reuse, including non-targeted chemical characterization and toxicological assays...Standard WET assays employ conventional acute and chronic endpoints that capture effects on mortality, reproduction, and growth, but may be insufficient for comprehensive hazard identification. Future work should investigate subtle molecular and physiological responses to unidentified PW constituents using enzyme-based assays and advanced molecular techniques." (Emphasis added.) 

   
   

   Until the toxic contaminants in produced water and the treatment byproducts created during the process of treatment have been positively identified and standards for human health have been set, there is no reason for New Mexicans to allow our water and health to be put at risk for the benefit of private industry profit.

   
   

2. Scientific studies have not yet been conducted at scale or over a sufficient period of time. Even small traces of contaminants can accumulate in soil, plants and bodies over time, causing long term health impacts. Fracking waste is also extremely corrosive and treatment equipment must constantly be cleaned and replaced to maintain efficacy. That is why a lab based test is not the same as proving efficacy at scale and over time. The same pilot study notes that "Furthermore, the economic viability of this process is heavily influenced by media management, such as GAC replacement frequency. High organic loading in Permian Basin PW may lead to rapid GAC exhaustion, necessitating a robust regeneration strategy to manage operational costs."

   
   

   In other words, the treatment train accumulates salts and toxic, radioactive contaminants so quickly that the process may not be economically feasible. Treatment quality will degrade whenever the temptation to cut corners on maintenance and replacement parts takes precedence over our health. In the places where fracking waste reuse has been attempted at scale, plants have ultimately been abandoned because it was not economically feasible to operate. And the environment and workers suffered the consequences.

3. WATR Alliance argues that the current extreme aridification facing New Mexico means that we must start using fracking waste to solve our water woes. But even if the treatment protocols could effectively clean the waste, a prospect not yet proven feasible, it would not make a meaningful difference. The pilot project touted in this study treated thirty to 45 barrels per day, recovering 55% of the volume treated, a minuscule amount against the water shortage we are facing. Imagine a farmer opted to water his dying fields with a Brita water pitcher from the fridge. Meanwhile meaningful water conservation projects that desperately need resources and funding are ignored by the legislature and the State. It's time to get serious and stop wasting time and resources on this oil and gas industry bailout.

The WQCC is expected to decide whether to give this latest WATR Alliance petition a hearing at the April 14th open meeting, which will be held at 9:00am at the NM State Capitol, Room 309, 490 Old Santa Fe Trail and online. The link can be found on the calendar page here. We need every water defender to be there.