The Southwest region spreads out over a vast area that is sometimes called the “wide open spaces.” Petroleum has brought the region most of its wealth, as the region consists of large deposits of petroleum and natural gas, as well as various other minerals.

In the 1900s, refineries and petrochemical factories were attracted to the Southwest, and for a long stretch the region has been able to attract oil and gas producers due to the compatibility the region had to push their businesses. Over the years, a number of these oil and gas sites had to be shuttered due to various factors, including contamination. Many of these properties have been viewed as prime parcels for brownfield development projects.

Depending on the state (and Southern California has been folded into the Southwest region within this report), oil and gas operations and the environmental restoration of sites might fall under the authority of an agency that only handles O&G operations, and not covered by environmental protection agencies. These agencies “are old and possibly have outdated cleanup requirements and are very restrictive or very lax standards in which they judge clean up attempts,” said Rick Shean, Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund Coordinator, and remediation oversight project manager, New Mexico Environment Dept., Albuquerque.

“Either way, it takes very motivated entities to take on sites that can be hundreds of acres in size and have several unknown environmental conditions due to absent and or insufficient environmental monitoring,” said Shean. “In New Mexico, the Environment Department works with the state agency that deals with O&G restoration projects and tries to provide oversight through a ‘voluntary remediation agreement,’” Shean points out.

Like oil and gas, the railroads represent another iconic piece of the Southwest. Many former railroad maintenance yards provide unique opportunities for redevelopment. “Many former railroad maintenance yards are in southwestern brownfields inventories,” said Shean. “They provide unique opportunities for redevelopment, particularly if they are in urban cores or near urban cores. New Mexico has recently started light-rail commuter train service between Belen and Santa Fe, over 200 miles between the two cities, and the city of Santa Fe redeveloped an old railyard as a train stop with several restaurants, retail and office fronts. Albuquerque recently purchased a 27-acre railyard near downtown Albuquerque and wants to redevelop with mixed use housing and retail space.”

Water availability and water rights in the Southwest has always served as an X factor in brownfield projects. Remediation activities requiring the discharge of water, such as “pump and treat” systems, typically include on-site treatment and re-injection of treated water, creating a net zero use of water. “Water rights are very difficult to come by in the West, where most water law regimes are based on the practice of ‘prior appropriation’ to a certain date in respective state laws, and the amount available is based on court and statute determined ‘beneficial uses,’” said Shean.

Creating ‘new water’
A current controversial attempt by oil and gas operations to create “new water”—water extracted during the drilling process that’s deep in the ground and has a total dissolved solids content of greater than 1,000 mg/L—is troubling the New Mexico Office State Engineer, which is responsible for administering all waters in the state, said Shean. O&G is now filing for water rights for these created waters, and “attempts to change state law to both include and exclude these deep, turbid waters abound. The waters are typically recycled for onsite drilling activities, but some advocates for this reclaimed water are clamoring for use of this water resource for potable consumption,” said Shean.

Excellent wind and solar resources are indigenous to several Southwest states, and New Mexico is one of them. “New Mexico and the other states in the Southwest have excellent wind and solar resources as determined by the DOE,” said Shean. “In fact, many regional energy companies are supplementing their base loads with renewable sources of energy in advance of federal and/or state-sanctioned greenhouse gas emission standards.”

The Southwest is the fastest growing region in the country and the challenge of providing energy to the population expansion “is a big one, and is hindered by a lack of distribution lines,” Shean said. “The temptation to continue to use coal in the energy production is this region with large coal reserves is great, as is the re-opening of uranium mines in this part of the country, particularly New Mexico, which has a large reserve and growing interest to be exploited by uranium mining companies. Many legacy uranium mining sites exist on federal, private and Indian lands in the Southwest, and the poor restoration of the sites that closed down in the 1980s has created a resistance to the call to open these holes up again,” Shean concludes.