Frequently Asked Questions

Desalination is a process that removes minerals from saline water.

The two most common desalination methods are thermal and membrane technologies. The thermal process involves heating saline water and then condensing and collecting water vapor to produce fresh water.  Membrane processes, commonly referred to as reverse osmosis, rely on semi-permeable membranes to separate minerals from water.

Early assessments of New Mexico's brackish ground water in the early 1960s, coordinated through the Office of Saline Water—a national research program initiated by President Kennedy—suggested that as many as 15 billion acre-feet of brackish groundwater existed in New Mexico.  However, more refined assessments in the early 2000s by New Mexico researchers determined that the most easily and economically recoverable brackish ground water was closer to 2 billion acre-ft, which still represents about 1000 years of water availability, based on current overall water use in New Mexico.

There is one dedicated desal plant in Alamogordo, New Mexico, providing municipal water on an as needed basis.  

Additionally, there are several small desalination systems on individual ground water wells in municipalities across New Mexico, and industrial plants that use desalinated water in their operations.  

Overall, about 5-10 million gallons of water is desalinated each day in New Mexico. But that is growing as several desalination initiatives treating inland brackish groundwater and oilfield produced water move forward.  Key facilities include the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, which is a federal Bureau of Reclamation hub for researching desalination technologies and treating impaired groundwater.  There are also several projects like the Sunvapor/Southeastern New Mexico College pilot facility near Carlsbad, announced in February 2026, that are purifying produced water from oil extraction. The New Mexico State Legislature has also committed millions of dollars for proposed desal projects, including to the Village of Cuba and the Pueblo of Laguna.  New Mexico State University is also currently working on a “Brine Valorization Accelerator Hub” to extract lithium from brine.

The concentrated saline water that is the unused byproduct of the desalination process is referred to as concentrate.  In the case of marine desalination, this byproduct is reintroduced back into the ocean it came from, at a prescribed safe distance from the coastline.  When desalination is used inland with brackish water, the concentrate is injected into deep formations via injection wells or, using newer technologies, the minerals can be separated from the concentrate and commercialized.  Additional technologies are being developed to better utilize this byproduct.

Access to reliable and cost-effective water supplies is a major driving force to support both economic and environmental sustainability.  Adequate and clean water supplies are needed to support municipal public health and safety; commercial, industrial, and manufacturing; to cool power plants and data centers; to support agriculture to grow food and forage for livestock; and to support healthy and robust natural ecosystems. The New Mexico 50-year Water Plan expects brackish water, produced water, and municipal wastewater reuse to be major new sources of water for New Mexico.  All three of these resources will require desalination to be utilized.

Significant advances over the past 50 years in brackish and saline water desalination and treatment have now made the development of local brackish groundwater or local sea water in coastal communities more affordable and in many cases less costly than developing freshwater resources in remote areas and transporting that water hundreds of miles to a community.  While there are many variables related to the cost of desalinated water, the Texas Water Development Board states a good rule of thumb is $2.00-2.50 per 1,000 gallons for brackish water and $3-5 per 1,000 gallons for seawater desalination.