Steve Pearce: “many times people have asked exactly how does this work on the ground. For instance, in my home county of Lea County…”

“many times people have asked exactly how does this work on the ground. For instance, in my home county of Lea County, New Mexico, we have the Ogallala Aquifer. We are right at the very edge of it. And in the 50 years we have been pumping out of the aquifer, we have used about 50 percent of the water that is available to us. There is no surface water available, only that aquifer water is available. We have used 50 percent of it, and it would take 1,900 years to recharge what has been used, and so we understand that we are on the downward slide for having water available to us. In Lea County, New Mexico, we produce over 150,000 barrels of water yearly, and that water is reinjected. If that water were available to be cleaned up, that water would be available for development, industry and jobs. It is a very important thing. The county right next is Eddy County. Water is produced there that is fresher than water in the Pecos River, and yet law and regulation requires the disposal of that water back down into salt zones. Everyone in the West understands that at some point we are going to go back and repump that water to the surface, this time for use as water. Right now it is free at the surface. It is a by-product of the oil and gas exploration, and yet we are required to put that water back down into wells, into the salt zones, where it is going to be very much harder to clean up the next time we use it.”