A salt-removal research plant in New Mexico may receive $12.6 million in infrastructure money from the federal government.
Government agencies, academic institutions, and private researchers utilize the facility in order to advance desalination technology and techniques for brackish groundwater, such as the use of renewable energy to help provide power for salt removal. This facility is the only one of its kind in the United States.
New Mexico’s PFAS Legal Battles Cost Millions
After widespread PFAS contamination from firefighting foams used at Air Force facilities around Clovis and Alamogordo extended to groundwater, residents of New Mexico spent millions on testing and legal bills.
The government is now helping pay for maintenance. Deb Haaland, the Interior Department’s secretary, has announced a $12.6 million treatment facility investment to eliminate toxic.
Communities in the western United States are facing increasing difficulty obtaining clean drinking water as a result of climate change and a multi-year drought.
The snowpacks that feed the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers are diminishing as a result of warmer temperatures and altered snowfall patterns. Fresh groundwater resources have decreased as a result of decades of over-pumping aquifers.
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Feds Fund Desalination Research
In September, New Mexico’s neighbor earned $20 million from the Department of the Interior for its largest inland desalination facility. El Paso Water Utility treats water for eastern El Paso and Fort Bliss at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant.
State and federal governments sponsor desalination research. The Interior Department gave states $250 million to build desalination plants in January. New Mexico legislature allocated $35 million for Lower Rio Grande desalination in 2023.
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