New Mexico public lands commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard said Tuesday the state’s land office is ending commercial sales of fresh water from state trust lands for oil and gas development to protect resources and encourage operators to reuse and recycle water. Effective Dec. 15, the land office will no longer issue new easements for commercial sales of freshwater for oil and gas development and will no longer renew existing easements as they expire.
“Rather than looking at fresh water as a commodity for sale to the highest bidder, we should look at the advancements in water recycling and produced water as our way forward,” she said. “There is simply no reason for fresh water to be used for fracking. If we are reliant on an economy based on getting oil out of the ground, we should be prioritizing the use of recycled or produced water to do so.” FracFocus said almost 14.5 billion gallons of water were used for oil and gas production in the state in 2019.