New Mexico: Planned and active ethanol plants in Ogallala Aquifer
Report overview | State maps: Colorado | Kansas | Nebraska | New Mexico | Oklahoma | Texas
Map 1. Declining Water Table
Potential effect: Already scarce water supplies become scarcer
Water needs for corn-to-fuel processing in the 30-million-gallon-per-year Portales ethanol plant draw approximately 120 million gallons per year from the aquifer in a region that has witnessed water table declines of over 40 feet between 1980 and 1996. The production capacity of this facility combined with that of the four planned plants just across the Texas border may create additional pressure on water resources in New Mexico, due to both corn processing needs and potential increases in local irrigated corn production.
Map 2. Conservation Reserve Program: Land Retired from Use
Potential effect: Loss of critical habitat
Eastern New Mexico was part of the center of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Increased demand for corn could create pressure to plow restored and native grasslands that are often highly erosive and also are critical habitat for at risk grassland species like the lesser prairie chicken and swift fox.
Map 3. Important Native Grasslands of the Central Shortgrass Prairie
Sources
CRP data: Conservation Programs, Farm Service Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Ethanol plant location data: Earth Policy Institute. 2006. Data files for distillery demand for grain to fuel cars vastly understated.
Native grasslands data: Neely, B., et al. 2006. Central Shortgrass Prairie Ecoregional Assessment and Partnership Initiative. The Nature Conservancy of Colorado and the Shortgrass Prairie Partnership.
Ogallala depletion data: Fischer, B. C., and V. L. McGuire. 1999. Digital data set of water-level changes in the High Plains aquifer in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming, 1980 to 1996. Lincoln, NE: U.S. Geological Survey.
