At the UN Climate Change Conference in December of last year, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced a bold new idea to meet the challenges of New Mexico’s water crisis. The initiative, known as the Strategic Water Supply, would invest $500 million to purchase treated brackish and produced water. This model is known as an “advanced market commitment” and is utilized in other industries to incentivize private sector investment and reduce risks associated with building costly infrastructure.
After the announcement, further details on the idea were slow to materialize. The proposed funding pathway was to utilize severance tax bonds. A bill was finally heard towards the end of this 30-day session but was not able to be passed out of committee. The Governor has made clear moving this idea forward is a priority for her administration and in January the New Mexico Environment Department issued a request for information, looking to obtain additional information from industry and stakeholders around the idea.
Click here to view the response to this RFI New Mexico Wild submitted, along with our partners at Western Resource Advocates and the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, outlining some of our questions and concerns about the idea. We look forward to discussing the Strategic Water Supply further and will continue to advocate for solutions to New Mexico’s water crisis that take into account the needs of all its communities, human and non-human, with an eye for resiliency and sustainability. For questions or more information, please contact Tricia Snyder at tricia@nmwild.org or 505-843-8696.
