Fill out the form below to submit your public comment in the proposed WQCC 23-84 rulemaking, which will allow reuse of fracking waste, aka produced water, outside the oil field. We cannot choose your words for you, but here is some information that you may choose to include in your comment. Comments will be accepted until August 14th.

The proposed rule, WQCC 23-84, is dangerous as written because it fails to protect our water and public health from many toxic and radioactive compounds found in fracking waste.

1. The rule includes no scientific treatment standards and allows reuse of produced water without a permit process, which removes any potential for public input and transparency. Produced water is known to contain PFAS, bromide, arsenic, mercury, barium, radioactive isotopes and organics like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes. Exposure to these toxic and radioactive substances is correlated with increased risks of cancer, birth defects, and early death. Implementation of a rule without specific standards for treatment endangers our water and public health.

2. The proposed rule authorizes the reuse of produced water for demonstration and industrial projects outside the oil field, and defines reuse water as water treated "appropriately" for "agriculture, irrigation, potable water supplies, aquifer recharge, industrial processes or environmental restoration.” The rule doesn't even define appropriate or who will decide what is appropriate. Agricultural uses of treated produced water, in particular, raise questions about direct exposure of affected soils, contamination of food crops via bioabsorption through plant roots, and impacts on livestock due to ingestion. Soil degradation, lower crop yields and microbial diversity were seen in land irrigated with treated and diluted oil and gas wastewater. Of more than a thousand chemicals found by scientists in produced water samples, only 14% even have established toxicity values for risk assessment in the United States. In other words, the toxicity of 86% of the chemicals has never even been studied. Risking the contamination of our food, water and land is reckless in the extreme.

3. Though the rule prohibits intentional discharge, the reuse of produced water in unlimited demonstration and industrial projects risks increased accidental spills and contamination across the state, and is intended to pave the way for future uses that have been tried and proven dangerous in states like Pennsylvania. The New Mexico Environment Department has already failed to enforce the prohibition against produced water spills. Since the start of Governor Lujan Grisham's administration just ten oil and gas companies self reported more than 48,000 "accidental" spills and discharges of fracking waste, and they continue to operate with impunity. New Mexico regulatory agencies' capacity to police the oil and gas industry is already proven wholly inadequate. New Mexico cannot adequately monitor, control, regulate and enforce produced water reuse outside the oil field to protect our ground and surface water, or the public health.

4. One of the Water Quality Control Commissioners appointed by the Governor, Commissioner McWilliams, owns a fracking company and is directly involved in produced water reuse. She has acted as a spokesperson for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Company, one of the parties in this case, by appearing in a promotional film falsely stating that there have been no cases of water contamination from fracking. And her husband was on the board of NMOGA up until 2021. Eighteen individuals and organizations have filed an Ethics Complaint and a Motion to demand that she be recused in this important case.

Most importantly, the Water Quality Control Commission should amend this rule to prohibit the discharge, disposal or reuse of treated or untreated produced water outside the oil field, without exception.