By Kent Paterson
After a lapse of nearly one year-and-a-half, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) conducted a community meeting the evening of April 7 in Sunland Park that focused on the thorny water quality issue which has dogged the New Mexico border community for decades. The meeting was held during a time when last year’s announced division of the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority (CRRUA) water utility between the county and city governments remains incomplete and separate cases of possible game changing litigation against the water utility hang in the balance.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of CRRUA’s pending break-up, the City of Sunland Park has established a new municipal water utility department to service areas under its jurisdiction.
The meeting was the latest opportunity to assess and debate the state of affairs at the publicly owned water utility, and the State of New Mexico’s role in regulating it, in the wake of the 2023-24 water quality crisis that sparked vigorous public protests after discolored, slimy water afflicted numerous households and, to the further outrage of the public, it was soon revealed that arsenic contaminated water had been delivered to consumers without proper warnings and notifications.
Linked to the question of water supply and air quality, the subject of the giant Project Jupiter/Stargate AI data center under construction in neighboring Santa Teresa was a hot topic of discussion.
Though the meeting held at the Doña Ana County Community College campus in Sunland Park didn’t draw as many people as a previous NMED-sponsored meeting at the same site back in September 2024, dozens of CRRUA customers, local officials and others turned out to hear NMED staff, ask questions, and field comments. Gathering and transmitting community feedback to Santa Fe was an important purpose of the meeting, according to NMED.
“We want to hear from you, the people of Sunland Park, what the state can do,” said NMED Water Protection Director Jonas Armstrong.
Local officials who attended the meeting included CRRUA Executive Director J.C. Crosby, Doña Ana County Commissioner and CRRUA Board member Gloria Gameros, newly elected Sunland Park City Council Representative and Mayor Pro Tempore Raul Telles, Sunland Park Deputy City Manager Marco Grajeda, and Sunland Park Communications Coordinator Yasmine Al Harbi. Noticeably absent were local media outlets which have covered the long running water drama in Sunland Park and Santa Teresa.
NMED Community Engagement Coordinator Kate Cardenas kicked off an evening that featured presentations by NMED staffers on topics ranging from the health effects of cancer-causing arsenic to an NMED online drinking water portal. Residents raised concerns about water rate hikes, infrastructure conditions and demands, and privatization scenarios.
NMED also announced that it will conduct a new sanitary survey of CRRUA this year.
For the first time, New Mexico’s environmental regulators offered suggestions for new services officials say the state agency could provide. These include expanded water quality testing; health care claims data review; installing household water filters; repairing or flushing hot water heaters; offering environmental health courses and staging community health fairs; and conducting indoor air quality investigations and abatements to determine if Volatile Organic Compounds are dispersed by swamp coolers.
Inevitably, attendees wondered how much the new services would cost and who would pay for them. Armstrong said the state government was contemplating footing the bill, with reimbursement to residents possible in some cases while in other instances contractors could be paid directly so financially stressed individuals could likewise benefit from the program. Armstrong didn’t give a specific budget number for the proposed services, but he said money was available and that the program could get off the ground by the end of summer.
On water safety, NMED delivered an overview on how the arsenic health standard compliance – which is set at 10 ppb by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – is measured in utility systems. Toxic to humans, the metal occurs naturally in the topography of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa.
Martin Torrez, public water systems section manager for NMED, confirmed that CRRUA was currently in compliance with the arsenic health standard, as the water utility recently posted on its website. Avery Young, chief of the new Water Protection Compliance and Enforcement Bureau, said unresolved issues with CRRUA included copper and lead in water documentation and previous sanitary survey inspection observations. According to Torrez, NMED will conduct a new sanitary survey this year; the previous two, in 2019 and 2023, detected numerous violations, which CRRUA later stated it had largely corrected.
Quality and Quantity
Several questions and/or comments touched on water quantity in general and the massive Project Jupiter/Stargate data center in particular. NMED was careful to explain that the agency wields no power over water allocations, a responsibility tasked to the Office of the State Engineer. Some attendees, however, pressed the issue; one man said quantity and quality are “inextricably linked.”
Activists from Fight Chihuahuan Desert Extraction passed out leaflets that contended 13 million tons of pollution, “more climate warming emissions than all of New Mexico’s major cities combined,” would spew annually from the Santa Teresa AI data center’s two proposed gas-fired power microgrids. The project would “drain 10 million gallons of water just to start up, then pull 60,000 gallons of drinking water per day,” the leaflet contended. “An even larger undisclosed quantity of water will likely be pumped from the ground for power plant operations.”
According to the Project Jupiter Community Benefits Agreement signed between the Doña Ana County and Project Jupiter/Stargate developers on November 12 of last year, the Santa Teresa data center build out (which is fast occurring) can use between an average of 20,000 gallons per day of “treated drinking water,” with a maximum cap of 60,000 gallons per day, provided by CRRUA/ Doña Ana County.
But on April 6, the Santa Fe New Mexican and then independent journalist Heath Haussamen of Las Cruces (April 7, 9 and 14) published stories that report the water quantity numbers contained in the agreement with Doña Ana County represent only a fraction of the likely, overall water consumption of the development. For full details:
Needless to say, the stories are fueling more controversy over a mega-project that already confronts widespread citizen opposition as well as court challenges from the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. With a Meta data center under construction in northeast El Paso near the New Mexico border and a possible third one unfolding on land belonging to Ft. Bliss in the Texas city, AI data centers and the amount of water and natural gas used to power them are defining issues charting the future of the binational Paso del Norte region in 2026 and well beyond.
After all, El Paso and Doña Ana counties in the U.S. and neighboring Ciudad Juárez in Mexico share a common airshed, river and aquifers.
As reported in El Paso media outlets, the U.S. Army is inviting the public to a “listening session” on the third data center scheduled for Wednesday, April 22 at 6:30 pm. That event is set for the Wyndham El Paso Airport Conference Center located at 2027 Airway Blvd.
In New Mexico, a public hearing on air quality permits for the Santa Teresa data center’s proposed microgrid(s) is expected sometime this year.
In related news, a leaflet passed out at by activists at the April 7 meeting and bearing the Hold the Line Campaign name expressed opposition to the so-called “Green Chile Pipeline” that is proposed to transport natural gas along a 17-mile corridor in southern Doña Ana County to the Project Jupiter/Stargate microgrids developers seek to build. And as Source New Mexico reported April 13, the Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch and the Center for Biological Diversity have filed a challenge to the pipeline with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Attracting interest far outside the borderland, the proposed pipeline to fuel Project Jupiter/Stargate prompted the Washington D.C.-based national consumer rights organization Public Citizen to file an April 13 protest with the FERC. The plot thickens.
The Gap between the Grassroots and Officialdom
Despite CRRUA’s vows to improve water quality and better public relations, deep distrust of the water utility and even the NMED pervades Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, illustrated by a woman’s comment at the April 7 meeting that she “grew up drinking out of plastic bottles because the water wasn’t safe.” Two rate hikes in 2024 and 2025 which CRRUA argues were necessary to rescue the utility from a financial and operational abyss are widely unpopular.
“Who is testing the testers?” questioned resident Jose Saldaña. The community activist also raised instances of non-functioning CRRUA equipment, the destination of money from a $189,000 NMED fine of CRRUA for settling previous water law violations, the long-range impact of Project Jupiter/Stargate on water resources, and whether anything has really changed since the September 2024 meeting. “We’re in a bind here…,” he said. “Everyone buys (outside CRRUA) water. Nobody here trusts the system.”
Saldaña’s comments drew a hefty round of applause from the attendees.
In response to Saldaña and others, Armstrong and NMED Drinking Water Bureau Chief Joe Martinez cited an ongoing NMED lawsuit against CRRUA which in part demands expanded water testing, the State’s use of independent certified labs to test water samples collected by NMED employees, and the existence of different funding mechanisms CRRUA could tap into for improving water quality and delivery.
“We appreciate questions, and we understand that’s there’s a lot of frustration, but we’ve gotten a lot of good feedback to take back,” Martinez said.
Sunland Park Deputy Manager Marco Grajeda and City Councilman Raul Telles pushed back against the criticisms. According to Grajeda, CRRUA sponsored a community night or open house the previous week where utility officials were on hand to answer questions, vowing CRRUA will do such an event again.
In addition to actively securing state and federal funding, Grajeda said CRRUA met with the North American Development Bank the morning of April 7. He suggested that NMED include CRRUA in its next meeting.
Raul Telles, who in addition to his roles with Sunland Park city government now also chairs CRRUA’s board, asked NMED where they were before 2023 when the latest water crisis erupted. He criticized the state for suing to get an independent manager appointed to control the utility and infringing on local control, insisting that CRRUA has changed since 2023. He highlighted the “restructured” CRRUA board, new members (like himself) sitting on the Sunland Park City Council, and positive arsenic treatment results.
“We don’t want the State, and you can take that back to the Cabinet Secretary (Environment Secretary Kenney),” Telles said.
Countering Telles, Señora Rodriguez, a lifelong community resident and sharp critic of CRRUA, appealed to NMED staffers: “There’s no trust. We want you to be here. We need you. We need you here to be observing them.”
Battle of the Lawyers
The tension between Telles and NMED is perhaps unsurprising considering that NMED is suing CRRUA in New Mexico’s Third Judicial District in Las Cruces. Originally filed in May 2025, NMED seeks a court order that puts CRRUA in receivership. Other measures sought by NMED include implementing real-time arsenic monitoring, distributing free arsenic test strips for all CRRUA customers, providing an alternative drinking source if arsenic levels surpass legal limits, and ensuring that CRRUA conduct monthly public meetings.
The next step in the case is a hearing on CRRUA’s motion for partial summary judgment that’s scheduled to be heard by Judge Manuel Arrieta on August 24.
In a separate case in the Third Judicial District since November 2024, more than six hundred plaintiffs represented by the national Singleton Schreiber law firm and New Mexico attorneys are suing former CRRUA Executive Director Brent Westmoreland and the two governmental entities that oversee CRRUA, the City of Sunland Park and the Board of Commissioners of Doña Ana County, for delivering arsenic contaminated water to consumers over many years. Third Judicial District Judge Casey Fitch recently dismissed most claims against the City of Sunland Park but allowed a claim of negligence to move forward against the municipal government.
Read: Read More