This sounds like click bait! Nahhhh....
This white paper came across Middle Rio Grande (metro Albuquerque area) Water Assembly listserve yesterday. Here is the message accompanying it:
I’m attaching a white paper distributed at Coronado SWCD’s board meeting last Thursday. One of Coronado’s board members is also a member of the board of the Sile Domestic Water & Sewer Association, and this issue has been a matter of much discussion at recent Coronado board meetings. The impact of medical cannabis production on rural domestic water systems appears to have been totally overlooked by the State. This impact will be greatly exacerbated if the State legalizes recreational marijuana. This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the Legislature, and would seem to fall squarely within the mission of the Water Advocates.
Executive Summary
The issue of water is completely lacking from New Mexico’s legislation and licensing requirements for medical cannabis. Current commercial cannabis producers use 463% more water than the average households in our communities. It is often grown in greenhouses that cannot use filtered surface irrigation water. Consequently, this commercial agricultural crop will often use water from municipal water supplies or domestic wells. This paper presents concerns of two public water systems, the Sile Mutual Domestic Water & Sewer Association (SMDWSA) and the Peña Blanca Water & Sanitation District (PBWSD), with medical cannabis farms in their communities. Their experience highlights several concerns that legislators and regulatory agencies should share with public water systems over the impacts that inadequately regulated medical cannabis production operations may have on the quantity and quality of rural New Mexico’s drinking water. Most significant of these impacts are:
- • Unauthorized use of public water systems’ drinking water to irrigate medical cannabis crops
- • Overage of the permitted amount of water allowed for a public water system
- • Potential threats to current and future federal funding for necessary improvements and infrastructure.
- • Mischaracterization of the water withdrawal
- • Agricultural runoff and wastewater production that may be excessive and are not licensed or adequately monitored.
SMDWSA and PBWSD have identified actions that they must take to protect their members’ drinking water and the water systems’ water rights. Unfortunately, these efforts, while necessary, do not address the larger issues of inadequate oversight and regulation by the State.
While licensing of medical cannabis has been overseen by the Department of Health, the true impacts of the agricultural crop on surface and ground water have been overlooked. Medical cannabis is not chile, yet cannabis production (hemp and medical cannabis combined) seems to be overtaking that crop – but there are no guardrails for protecting the communities hosting LNPPs
(Note: LNPPs = Licensed Non-Profit Producers).
The legislature must move to protect New Mexico’s drinking water and the rural public water systems that serve most of the State. The Department of Health must coordinate with the Department of Agriculture, the Environment Department, the Office of the State Engineer, and other regulatory agencies to protect New Mexico’s rural communities and their most precious resource – safe drinking water.
Jumping ahead...
Recommended Actions
Legislators and permitting agencies need to work with public water systems to put in place safety measures that will establish LNPPs as good neighbors rather than as interlopers that violate and exploit long-standing communities and water systems and then move on.
New Mexico’s legislators and agencies need to address the consequences of legalizing medical cannabis production. It needs to normalize the agricultural production of this crop by enforcing the rules and regulations that normally apply to agricultural production. Medical cannabis is not a“normal” crop, however, and it therefore requires additional oversight and explicit instruction for LNPPs.
1. The Legislature should pass legislation requiring all applicants for a medical cannabis license to demonstrate a valid water right for commercial agricultural production. The LNPP application should require that applicants specify where they will get agricultural production water and prove that they have are using the water legitimately.
2. The State of New Mexico should provide additional funding to the OSE to hire staff to review all applications submitted for a medical cannabis license, both existing and prospective. OSE should meter all new well permits. Perhaps these costs could be included in the LNPP licensing fee.
3. Current LNPPs using water from a domestic well for commercial cannabis production should apply to the OSE to change the purpose of use and go through the public process that allows affected communities and public water systems to weigh in on that application.
4. Any domestic permit issued by the OSE to a LNPP must be required to be metered in accordance with NMAC 19.27.5.13 C (1)(c). Any public water system affected by the over pumping of their domestic water for medical cannabis production should be reimbursed for twice (2 times) the over diversion amount during the following calendar year. Repayment should be made by acquiring or leasing a valid, existing water right for commercial agricultural production and submitting a plan for the proposed repayment to the State Engineer for approval. The OSE should enforce NMAC 19.27.5.15 C in all cases where an LNPP is not in compliance with its permit.
5. The Department of Agriculture should explicitly oversee LNPPs’ use of herbicides, pesticides, rodenticides, or other pest abatements that could impact drinking water quality.
6. The LNPP license should indicate the number of workers and demonstrate that there are appropriate sanitation facilities for these workers. The Environment Department should review applicants to address considerations that could affect surface and ground water quality.
SMDWSA and PBWSD are primarily concerned with water quality and quantity issues and have limited this discussion to those, although community members have identified other impacts not touched on here.
Conclusions
The promise of rural economic development from medical cannabis production seems to be a myth in the Middle Rio Grande Valley. No one from Sile or Peña Blanca has been hired by the LNPPs that have established farms in these communities. This may very well be the case in other communities as well. LNPPs’ use of municipal drinking water to irrigate medical cannabis crops can leave public water systems vulnerable to, and responsible for, abuses of their water rights. It impacts the effectiveness of these systems and potentially the quality of the water they provide. It has the potential to affect their ability to qualify for funding to repair and improve their infrastructure.
SMDSWA and PBWSD are taking action to address these issues to the extent that they can through their governing documents and public outreach.
Nevertheless, under the current licensing practices for medical cannabis in New Mexico, public water systems are vulnerable in a process that they cannot fully control. New Mexico’s public water systems provide safe drinking water to communities throughout the state. They need the help of legislators and regulators to protect this, New Mexico’s most precious resource.
We respectfully request that the concerns and experiences that we have shared with you in this document help guide your influence on future and current rulemaking and enforcement to provide appropriate safeguards for drinking and domestic water in our communities. We trust that you will make decisions to guide rulemaking and lawmaking to keep our communities safe for generations to come. We are available as a resource if you have questions or need additional information.
Who knew? Another unintended consequence.
Enjoy!
"The law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective." - Richard Schickel
Marijuana cultivation (whether illegal or sanctioned) poses significant threats to water supplies, both in terms of water use and water quality. The following are a few of the numerous articles that address the issues:
https://www.aquasana.com/info/education/the-environmental-impacts-of-marijuana-farming
https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2018/01/03/big-unknowns-what-legal-marijuana-means-for-water-in-western-states
https://www.watereducation.org/western-water/amid-green-rush-legal-cannabis-california-strives-control-adverse-effects-water
https://www.iisd.org/library/cannabis-legalization-fresh-water
https://daily.jstor.org/the-environmental-downside-of-cannabis-cultivation/
https://news.utexas.edu/2019/04/25/lost-in-the-marijuana-debate-its-impact-on-water-treatment-systems/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0120016
Posted by: EJ Hanford | Monday, 25 November 2019 at 07:32 AM