Proposed constitutional amendment · Draft
Harvest Brackish Water
A JOINT RESOLUTION
PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE XVI OF THE CONSTITUTION OF NEW MEXICO TO ESTABLISH A STATEWIDE PROGRAM FOR THE SCIENTIFIC ASSESSMENT, TREATMENT AND RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT OF BRACKISH GROUNDWATER; TO PROTECT EXISTING WATER RIGHTS AND PUBLIC HEALTH; AND TO PROVIDE FOR IMPLEMENTATION, FUNDING AND PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY.
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:
SECTION 1.
It is proposed to amend Article XVI of the Constitution of New Mexico by adding a new section to read:
“Section [New]. Assessment and responsible development of brackish groundwater.
A. Purpose and definition.
The state shall establish and maintain a science-based program to identify, evaluate and responsibly develop brackish groundwater for beneficial use, including treatment where necessary, to improve water security while protecting existing water rights, public health and the environment. For purposes of this section, “brackish groundwater” means naturally occurring groundwater containing dissolved salts at concentrations that require treatment for the proposed beneficial use. It does not include oil and gas produced water. The legislature shall establish technical classifications consistent with this definition.
B. Statewide inventory and scientific assessment.
The legislature shall provide by law for a coordinated statewide inventory of the location, depth, quantity and quality of brackish groundwater. The state engineer shall coordinate with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, other qualified public institutions and affected local and tribal governments, subject to their respective authority and voluntary participation.
The program shall use appropriate geophysical surveys, existing records, targeted drilling, sampling, aquifer testing and monitoring. Assessments shall distinguish total water in storage from water that is technically recoverable, legally available and economically feasible to develop. No estimate of groundwater storage shall alone establish a right to withdraw water or a sustainable yield.
C. Development plan and pilot projects.
Within two years after ratification, the state engineer shall publish an initial statewide brackish-groundwater assessment and development plan, including an evaluation of the Socorro and La Jencia basins, to the extent supported by available data. The plan shall identify information gaps, priorities for further investigation, proposed pilot projects and criteria for selecting projects. It shall be updated at least every four years.
The state shall support scientifically justified pilot projects and, where demonstrated feasible, development of brackish groundwater for beneficial use. Project evaluation shall address recovery limits, treatment performance, delivered-water costs, energy requirements, infrastructure, affordability and management of residual salts and treatment wastes. Projects shall be scaled only after sufficient evidence supports safe and lawful operation.
D. Protection of water rights and connected resources.
Nothing in this section shall impair existing or vested water rights, alter the priority of appropriation or the requirement of beneficial use, exempt a withdrawal from applicable state-engineer administration, or authorize impairment of federal or tribal reserved rights.
Withdrawal and use shall comply with applicable permitting requirements, interstate compacts, federal law and other binding obligations. Before approving a project, the responsible authorities shall assess effects on fresh groundwater, connected surface water, existing wells, land subsidence and water quality. Conditions shall include monitoring and enforceable limits, with reduction or suspension of withdrawals when required to prevent unlawful impairment or material harm.
E. Treatment and environmental safeguards.
Water supplied for drinking shall comply with applicable drinking-water standards. Water supplied for another use shall meet the standards applicable to that use. Concentrated brine and other treatment residuals shall be managed under applicable environmental and public-health laws. No project shall obtain an exemption from those protections by reason of this section.
F. Funding and implementation.
Within one year after ratification, the legislature shall enact implementing legislation providing for program administration, public participation, project-selection standards and accountability. The legislature shall provide appropriations necessary for implementation through the regular budget process.
No particular appropriation amount, dedicated tax, debt issuance, commercial subsidy or guaranteed purchase obligation is established by this section. Public expenditures shall be subject to applicable constitutional restrictions and financial oversight.
G. Transparency and public accountability.
The state engineer shall publish an annual report describing surveys and assessments completed, the evidence supporting resource estimates, project costs, withdrawal and treatment performance, effects on water resources, residual-waste management and progress toward program goals. Nonconfidential publicly funded scientific data shall be made available in accessible formats, subject to protections for security, personal information, tribal information and other information protected by law.
Affected communities shall receive public notice and an opportunity to comment before adoption of development plans and approval of publicly funded pilot projects, in addition to procedures otherwise required by law.
H. Construction, severability and effective date.
This section creates a public program mandate and does not create an individual entitlement to water, funding, a permit or damages. The legislature may enact additional protections consistent with its purposes. If a provision or application is held invalid, the remaining provisions and valid applications shall remain effective to the extent they can operate independently. This section shall take effect upon ratification by the voters of New Mexico.
”
SECTION 2.
The amendment proposed by this resolution shall be submitted to the people for their approval or rejection at the next general election or at any special election prior to that date that may be called for that purpose, in accordance with Article XIX of the Constitution of New Mexico.
Reference Material
Drafting choices
The background describes research rather than supplying operative amendment language. This draft translates that proposal into a statewide assessment and responsible-development mandate, with a Socorro and La Jencia basin evaluation, pilot projects and implementation deadlines. The one-year legislative deadline, two-year initial plan and four-year update cycle are drafting choices, not dates established by the source material.
The program does not promise a particular water yield or adopt the supplied statewide volume estimates as constitutional findings. It leaves technical salinity classifications, project costs and appropriations to implementing law and scientific assessment. Existing water rights, federal and tribal obligations, treatment standards and disposal requirements remain protected.
Verified sources and research limits
The Bureau of Geology’s January 2026 Get AMMPed! publication describes aquifer mapping, monitoring and airborne electromagnetic survey work, including identifying brackish groundwater. It describes a goal of mapping major aquifers by 2032 and completing a statewide monitoring network by 2037. Those are program goals, not guaranteed recoverable-water volumes.
Geophysical information must be assessed with geology, well records, sampling and aquifer tests. The supplied volume, depth, budget and Socorro-specific statements below are retained as background; they are not treated as verified site-specific findings in this amendment.
- New Mexico Bureau of Geology · Get AMMPed!, January 2026
- Office of the State Engineer · water administration
- New Mexico Constitution · Articles XVI and XIX
Suggested ballot summary · Draft
Proposing to amend Article XVI of the Constitution of New Mexico to establish a statewide program to assess and responsibly develop brackish groundwater, support treatment and pilot projects, protect existing water rights and public health, and require legislative implementation, funding and public reporting.
This summary is proposed explanatory wording, subject to the official ballot preparation process. This page is a legislative draft, not a filed or approved ballot measure.
Original supplied background and research discussion
[Harvest Brackish Water] Amendment
Let’s talk about the ocean of brackish water underneath New;Mexico what I’d like to know is how much of it is available under Socorro, New Mexico
No precise volume quantified for brackish water specifically under
Socorro.9
New Mexico has ~2-4 billion acre-feet of brackish groundwater statewide.6 In Socorro County, aquifers (e.g., Santa Fe Group, Quaternary deposits) hold fresh to slightly brackish water (TDS often <1,400 mg/L), but deeper saline portions are understudied with limited data on total available volume.59
There is no single “ocean of brackish water” under New Mexico with clear-cut boundaries. It’s a patchwork of different basins and aquifers where salinity varies by depth, location, and geology. Brackish water shows up in many places across the state, but the data is patchy—mostly from shallow wells, so deeper zones remain poorly mapped.
The Rio Grande Rift basins run roughly north-south through the center of the state, carrying some brackish zones from the San Luis Basin in the north down through Española, Albuquerque, Socorro, and further south into the Mesilla Basin near the border. Eastward, you hit significant brackish and saline resources in the Tularosa Basin, Estancia Basin, Roswell Artesian Basin, and Capitan Reef. Westward, the San Juan Basin in the northwest and Mimbres Basin in the southwest have their own saline pockets. Northward it fades into Colorado influences; southward it crosses into Texas and Mexico in places like the Hueco Bolson.
For Socorro specifically, the Socorro and La Jencia Basins sit in that central rift area. The water there is mostly slightly brackish to fresh on average—TDS often under 1,400 mg/L—but quality gets worse at the northern and southern ends of the Socorro Basin with higher chlorides, possibly from deeper upflow or geothermal influences. Most data comes from shallow wells around 150 feet deep, so nobody has a firm grip on how extensive or deep the brackish layers go there.
Bottom line: This isn’t one continuous body of water you can neatly box in. It’s fragmented by the state’s complex geology, and our understanding has huge gaps, especially at the depths where truly brackish stuff dominates. The state is still spending millions just to map this properly.
The best way isn’t satellites or ground-penetrating radar — that’s a rookie mistake. Satellites can only sniff surface soil salinity or vegetation stress; they can’t see thousands of feet underground where this brackish stuff actually sits. Ground-penetrating radar? It barely scratches a few dozen feet deep at best. Useless for aquifer volumes.
The actual gold standard they’re using right now in New Mexico is Airborne Electromagnetic surveys — AEM. A plane flies over and blasts electromagnetic signals into the ground, measuring resistivity. Fresh water resists electricity differently than salty/brackish water, so you get a 3D picture of where the brackish zones are, how deep they go, and roughly how much volume you’re dealing with. It’s fast, covers huge areas, and they’re already flying it over basins like the Mimbres and Lower Rio Grande to map fresh-versus-brackish boundaries.
After AEM, you still need targeted drilling and well testing to ground-truth the data, measure actual TDS, and calculate reliable volumes. But AEM is the efficient first step that tells you where to even bother drilling.
Everything else — old well logs, resistivity from boreholes — is slower and more expensive per square mile. New Mexico’s dropping millions on exactly this approach because the old way of just poking random wells wasn’t cutting it.
There’s a fresh January 2026 publication from the New Mexico Bureau of Geology’s Aquifer Mapping & Monitoring Program that lays out exactly what they’ve done with AEM so far. It’s called Get AMMPed! Volume 1 — you can grab the PDF straight from their site. It details how AEM surveys kicked off in November 2025 across the Mimbres Basin, Gila-Animas, Lower and Middle Rio Grande, and Estancia Basin. They’re mapping fresh-versus-brackish boundaries down to about 1,600 feet with data points every hundred feet or so.
It’s early days though — these flights only started late last year, so the publication mostly covers the launch, preliminary images shared in Deming in December 2025, and how the data’s already helping guide well placement. No statewide volume numbers yet because they’re still collecting and processing. There’s also a YouTube video on the Lower Rio Grande survey if you want visuals.
On budget and timeline: The program runs on $1.15 million recurring annually, plus they got $7.5 million one-time for FY26 to ramp up this work. They’re asking for serious money — around $20-22 million more for FY27. The goal is to map all major aquifers by 2032 and wrap the full statewide picture, including brackish zones, by 2037.
You’re not getting a complete map of every drop of brackish water under New Mexico anytime soon — this is a multi-year, multi-decade grind. But the program’s finally moving with real funding and the right tool.