What’s to say about Governor Lujan-Grisham pulling a Trumpish stunt to help the oil&gas industry endanger us?
Should treated fracking waste (euphemism: “produced water”) be used in ways that don’t include drinking water or watering crops but would reach streams and rivers? The waste contains hundreds of contaminants, which O&G uses “trade-secret” claims to not even identify for us.
Eighteen months of Water Quality Control Commission hearings led to a thoughtful, evidence-based decision: to prohibit discharges, but initiate a pilot program to identify all the contaminants and figure out how to deal with any dangerous ones. That May ruling, the Wastewater ReUse Rule, sounded sensible.
Guv and O&G disagreed. Within weeks, O&G filed a new petition aimed at overturning that rule. Normally, barring urgent new evidence, few bodies, and not the WQCC, would grant such a motion on something they just spent eighteen months deciding. (If nothing else, it’s awfully wasteful.)
But the Guv stacked the deck. She and her cabinet urged commissioners to vote for advancing the petition, and used the appointment process to put in safe votes. Environment Secretary James Kenney pressured commissioners and even became a commissioner. He also forbade Environment Department scientists, who’d proposed the ban and provided scientific evidence favoring it, from participating in the new hearings! Reminds me of RFK, Jr. firing CDC scientists, so he could ignore science and good health and set rules he wanted.
As one environmentalist put it, “At a time when we’re seeing institutional norms and government integrity disintegrate at the federal level, it’s disappointing to see that in our state.” Notably, the proposed reversal would also remove requirements that companies notify the public (and neighbors) before discharging the waste. Folks with nearby wells, children, cows, or crops would be clueless. And helpless.
This stuff contains dissolved solids, petroleum hydrocarbons, PFAs, metal, emerging contaminants, and naturally-occurring radioactive materials. It’s dangerous without careful and costly monitoring and disposal. Would washing my car with it or swimming in a stream it gets into harm? I’m no scientist. But when scientists and lawyers battled it out, the WQCC didn’t say “Go for it!”
Still, the Guv pushed for a rehearing and stacked the deck to be sure WQCC would set one. A hearing date may not come until next spring, and the Environment Department is following through on the May ruling. Several groups have asked the Court of Appeals to vacate the rehearing order and disqualify seven of the 14 commissioners, based on hard evidence of the state’s improper pressure. WQCC decisions are appealable to the state court of appeals. Note that O&G didn’t do that. I’d infer that they weren’t confident of their case – and were in a hurry. And had a cooperative guv. If she has her way, and the environmentalists and ranchers can use that appeal, and I’d bet on them. When a politician tells underlings to vote a certain way, contradicting their votes after extensive hearings, and denies them testimony from the state-employed scientists who testified in previous hearing, it shouldn’t be hard to convince a fair court that the decision was not based on, or supported by, evidence.
Corporations used to be free to pollute. We’ve so fouled our nest that everyone started paying more attention to people’s health and the environment. But governments are ignoring science and procedural protections to dance to corporate masters’ tunes. Does the Governor have some cogent explanation for this apparent example?
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[The above column appeared Sunday, 12 October 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun- News, and will presently be up on the newspaper’s website and on the KRWG website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]
[I’m still seeking a reasoned explanation. I may also try to arrange a radio discussion with folks who hold divergent views on these events.]
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