Chaves County will apply for a $250,000 allocation from the New Mexico Environment Department’s 2026 Strategic Water Supply Grant to assess treatment options for brackish water.
“Brackish groundwater, saltier than freshwater but less saline than seawater,” writes WSP Global, an engineering, science and infrastructure consultancy based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in an article about New Mexico’s water situation.
This seed money could help county officials determine whether it would be worthwhile for the county to treat this type of water eventually.
“There’s an ocean of brackish water here,” Chaves County Manager Bill Williams said during the commission meeting on Oct.15.
He noted that Chaves County had operated a desalination plant in the 1960s. “The federal government thought this was a viable place to try out their technologies. The technologies now are newer and different and better,” Williams told the commissioners.
A group of Chaves County officials recently toured a desalination plant in El Paso, Texas, after Commissioner Michael Perry recommended the trip as possibly being worthwhile. Perry had a prior commitment and couldn’t take the tour. However, Williams went with Commissioners Michael Waide and Herbert Corn to see the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant in El Paso. It’s the world’s largest inland brackish water desalination facility.
The county commissioners voted unanimously to allow this grant application to be submitted, according to Resolution 26-053, which directs county staff to pursue this funding resource.
