The Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced legislation that combines two bills that aims to increase water quality protections for much of New Mexico and regulate pollution discharged into state surface waters. Both Senate Bill 21 and Senate Bill 22 will now be merged into an amended SB 21. The updated version of the proposal was not yet available Thursday on the Legislature’s website.
The legislation, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) and Rep. Kristina Ortez (D-Taos), is a response to a U.S. Supreme Court 2023 Sackett v. EPA decision, which dramatically decreased federal Clean Water Act protections for intermittent waters, which accounts for nearly 95% of New Mexico’s streams and rivers. It would also add a state program to do the permitting in the New Mexico Environment Department.
Tannis Fox, a senior attorney with Western Environmental Law Center, said this bill reinstates protections from discharges from wastewater plants, mining, construction and other pollution sources that existed over fifty years, before being narrowed by court decisions.
“These are waters that formerly had protections from discharges and the sky didn’t fall,” Fox said. “Businesses were able to get permits, and conduct their business before.”
Supporters of the legislation, including Pueblo of Laguna Gov. Harry Antonio Jr., referenced the Sackett v. EPA decision.
“Passing SB 21 and SB 22 is a top legislative priority for Laguna,” Antonio said at the committee hearing Wednesday evening. “Achieving this goal is essential to begin to reestablish surface water protections that have ensured clean water for generations.”
Lobbyists in opposition expressed concerns about the bill’s impact on the farm, dairy and construction industries, and said the new permit requirements may duplicate existing permit requirements.
The combined bill now heads to its third committee: Senate Finance. If it advances through its final committee, the bill still requires a vote of the full Senate, and passage through House committees and a vote of the full House.
Even if the bill passes, sponsors and advocates said the state’s takeover of a surface water permitting program would take a few years to stand up.
The vote to advance the bill occurred along party lines. Sen. Crystal Brantley (R-Elephant Butte) objected to the bill, calling it a “great overreach” in establishing protections for intermittent waters — or arroyos and rivers that run dry — and questioned if the state’s environment department would have the personnel to take on a permitting program.
Senators approved the bill with amendments to allow penalties from water pollution violations to add to funding the quality permitting program. Sponsors added specific language laying out that state regulators have the authority to clean up groundwater, and cut a $50 million dollar appropriation for groundwater pollution cleanup, noting that the money was adopted in the House’s version of the budget.
The combined version of the bill also addressed concerns raised in a previous hearing that it did not match all the exemptions — such as for farming — to Clean Water Act permit requirements, according to Jonas Armstrong, the Water Protection Division director at the NMED.
“This has been a long-term plan for New Mexicans to take control of protecting New Mexico’s waters,” Armstrong said. “Sackett accelerated and emphasized that need.”
This story was published by Source New Mexico as part of a collaboration with UNM’s Statehouse Reporting Project.
