Concern simmers in Estancia Basin over water trucked to SunZia wind farms

EDGEWOOD — Patrick Milligan, a rancher by trade, has witnessed the trucks hauling water wend their way south across the parched landscape, advancing toward the lofty towers of the immense wind farms.

Against the backdrop of the wind energy boom in Central New Mexico, residents of East Mountain communities like Edgewood, where Milligan lives, and nearby Stanley are sounding the alarm, wondering whether the underground Estancia Basin, with a lowering water table, can continue to meet their needs amid increasing pressure from new development.

The anxiety stems from the concern water is being pumped and trucked out of the area for dust mitigation at construction sites for sprawling wind farms and a snaking 550-mile transmission line expected to come online in 2026 as part of the massive SunZia Wind and Transmission project — often touted as the largest renewable energy project in U.S. history. Construction got underway in 2023 and is about 75% complete.

Milligan said he sees about 20 water trucks a day leaving Edgewood.

The developer behind SunZia asserts the construction project uses less water than a small farm. But the trucks are hard to ignore for residents of ranching communities east of Albuquerque, where water is a fragile resource and gravely serious business.

“This is water we simply do not have to give,” said Milligan, a member of the Edgewood Town Commission. “Millions of gallons are being transported out of our basin to supply operations like the wind farm in Corona, where it is being used merely to keep the dust down.”

It’s likely not an exaggeration: Records reveal tens of millions of gallons of groundwater in the Estancia Basin likely are being tapped for the project. Water rights transfer databases on the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer’s website show several transfers in the last couple of years, around the time construction began on SunZia, explicitly aimed at boosting water resources for a project that includes 900 wind turbines and a 550-mile transmission line from Torrance County to central Arizona.

Residents of the Estancia Basin — where construction also is underway on parts of SunZia — say groundwater that could be used as drinking water should not be used for dust control.

Officials with Pattern Energy, a California-based company developing the $11 billion project, tell a different story. Spokesperson Matt Dallas said in a statement the project uses minimal water, comparatively.

“SunZia is using a relatively small quantity of water — far less than a small farm might use in the same period — to temporarily control dust and for some construction efforts,” Dallas said. “These activities are nearing completion and water use will reduce significantly in the coming months.”

The Estancia Basin — where much of the water is used for agriculture, according to state reports from past years — stretches from Moriarty in the north down to Willard, south of Estancia. In this dry region, groundwater is the primary source of water. The State Engineer’s Office has closed the basin to new appropriations and implemented stricter guidelines for permitted water rights.

Water supplies are dwindling statewide, the agency noted.

“The climate in New Mexico is increasingly hotter and drier, and scientific predictions indicate that available water supplies in the next 50 years will decline by 25-30% (and possibly more), while demands are expected to grow,” Maggie Fitzgerald, a spokesperson for the State Engineer’s Office, wrote in an email. “Compliance and enforcement are also challenges.”

But wind farms are often described as needing little water compared with other land uses, and large-scale projects like SunZia are expected to spur change across the West, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

Hundreds of wind turbines are under construction near Corona and Vaughn, two small and windswept towns southeast of Edgewood in Central New Mexico, as a part of the SunZia project.

In early September, Milligan said as many as 20 trucks a day were hauling water from the Estancia Basin out to wind farms there. Nothing had changed by early November, he said.

Edgewood Mayor Ken Brennan described a similar scenario.

Some water is being supplied by Entranosa Water & Wastewater, a private water cooperative based in Tijeras, Milligan said, and the company is pumping at its own bulk water station at the corner of N.M. 344 and Frost Road in Edgewood. Water is also being pumped on private properties and trucked out to wind farms, he added.

Jack Crider, the CEO of Entranosa Water & Wastewater, said in an interview the cooperative would not disclose its contracts with bulk water customers but explained it sells water to a variety of customers across a range of construction projects.

“It’s just a part of the business and it’s what keeps our cost down for our members,” Crider said. “Bulk haulers pay three times the rate as a typical Entranosa member. … It’s a major thing for construction. You don’t try to make some bread with flour without water.”

Zach Withers, a farmer and butcher near San Antonito who has advocated for water policy in the East Mountains, said large developments have the potential to strain the region’s water resources.

He and Millilgan both said they know of residents in the area with wells that have abruptly run dry.

“We’re not the only place that has this problem. But it is definitely one of the areas in the state that is being more severely affected by overpumping groundwater,” Withers said.

The notion SunZia is going to supply 1 million homes across the Southwest with power is a bit of a “slap in the face,” he added, citing reports stating the power could end up as far away as California.

He added, “People’s wells go dry every day up here. I never go one single day without somebody posting something on one of the community forums [on social media]: ‘Hey, I suddenly don’t have water. What do I do?’ ”

One water rights transfer shows wells off Stillbrook Lane near Estancia were approved for a transfer of 122.5 acre-feet per year — about 39 million gallons — through June 2026. Documents related to the transfer indicate the water rights had been used for domestic and irrigation purposes previously.

“This application is for a temporary lease of a total of 122.5 acre-feet per year of water rights for dust control and construction of the SunZia transmission line,” the application states. “This application has been partially preliminarily approved for 80.0 acre-feet until February 29, 2024, to enable continued construction of the SunZia Transmission Line.”

Another approved transfer explicitly for dust mitigation gives Blattner Energy LLC, the company selected by developer Pattern Energy to build the wind arrays, the option of using 280 acre-feet per year — 91 million gallons — with the water rights located in the Willard area.

However, the proposal that spurred the most the animated response from Torrance County officials was one that eventually was withdrawn, State Engineer’s Office records show.

Bill King, the son of former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King and the owner of a ranch north of Moriarty, filed an application in February with the State Engineer’s Office to transfer 302 acre-feet of water per year to Blatter Energy for the SunZia project from a property on the southeastern corner of N.M. 41 and Dinkle Road, south of Stanley and east of Edgewood.

Local elected officials were quick to push back.

Mountainair Mayor Peter Nieto wrote in a formal protest filed in April 2024 he “vehemently opposed” the proposal, calling it “grossly irresponsible” to transport water out of the Estancia Basin for the wind farm.

Andrea Padilla, president of the New Mexico Land Grant-Merced Consejo, a grassroots organization that advocates for land grants in the state, highlighted water issues facing land grant communities in the Estancia Basin in a similar protest filed with the State Engineer’s Office.

“We feel that using good drinking water for DUST control is a ridiculous idea. Is there no option to use non-potable water for this rather than good potable drinking water?” Padilla wrote.

King did not return a phone message seeking comment.

Cindy Golden Arnold, a resident of Stanley in southern Santa Fe County, said concerns have been heightened in her community recently by news about what has occurred at Melody Ranch, an East Mountains subdivision with about 75 homes tied to a community water system by covenant.

Until Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a recent executive order, the community was without reliable water service for a number months, from May to early November, due to a water well running dry and the private utility that operated the system running out of money to fix it.

“We’re concerned about ending up the same way — without any water,” Golden Arnold said. “And we’ve already had residents out there who have lost their well and are having to haul.”

She said the amount of activity at a site in Stanley evidently providing water for the SunZia project has driven some local worry.

Clean energy projects of scale are often heralded by politicians and championed by environmentalists who cite the familiar and foreboding statistics about the far-reaching impacts of climate change. But across the West, locals are quick to point out what it’s like to live near utility-scale energy developments.

Driving at night near the town of Estancia, in a sweeping, flat grassland landscape that could be mistaken for West Texas, one might have seen a scattering of lights from ranches years ago. But now the lights of nearby wind farms flash all through the night — also part of the SunZia project.

While some may argue the blinking red lights are a new addition to the landscape, and not for the better, Estancia Mayor Nathan Dial is not so worried about impacts to the viewshed.

Echoing sentiments similar to members of the Edgewood Town Commission, Dial is more concerned about the water and said he is aware of the trucks hauling water on N.M. 41 toward Lincoln County.

“They definitely help the economy and so on and so forth,” Dial said of the wind projects. “The main issue I got is the water [they need] that we don’t have.”

The bulk of the wind turbines associated with the project are clustered around Corona in northern Lincoln County and in Torrance County. But the transmission line runs through numerous New Mexico counties, including Socorro County along Interstate 25. The developer worked with the county, as it did with multiple counties in New Mexico, to obtain utility easements.

“Some people will tell you we shoved it down their throat and other people will tell you that it was OK,” said Joe Gonzales, who chairs the Socorro County Commission, adding the majority of people he knows were supportive. “The easements we had to give, we gave. We got compensation for it. Private residents were compensated accordingly also.”

Gonzales has recently driven around the wind farms, impressed by their magnitude. He sees benefits for rural counties like Socorro.

“We’re not Santa Fe, believe me,” he said. “We don’t have the tax base.”