Wildlife, Water, Landscape

Wildlife Wednesday is a free monthly speaker series held on the 2nd Wednesday.

Marble Brewery NE Heights, Albuquerque at 5:30pm

Speaker Details:

NEW MEXICO OFFICIAL DISCUSSES OPTIONS FOR HANDLING PRODUCED WATER FROM ENERGY BONANZA

Winter has failed to materialize across New Mexico. Record warm temperatures combined with minimal snowpack have water managers bracing for a bleak irrigation season and beyond.

But while much of New Mexico is parched, the Permian Basin, in the southeast corner of the state, is wrestling with the question of what to do with too much water.

Every day, the oil and gas industry pumps hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater from the Permian Basin as a byproduct of energy production. 

Current New Mexico regulations require energy companies to reinject this “produced water” from their operations back underground. There’s so much of the water that the industry faces the prospect of running out of places to put it.

Some in the energy industry are calling for developing state regulations to allow the treatment of the produced water for agricultural and other purposes. But some state regulators and environmental groups warn that adequate purification technology doesn’t yet exist for treating water on such a huge scale. They say that releasing it would pose an unacceptable environmental threat.

Zach Stoll, assistant director of the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium, will speak on the produced water issue at the New Mexico Wildlife Federation’s free “Wildlife Wednesday” presentation at 5:30 p.m., March 11, at the Marble Brewery NE Heights Taproom at 9904 Montgomery Blvd. in Albuquerque. For more information, click HERE.