GRANTS, N.M. – After years of preparation, Bright Green Corporation is ready to begin groundbreaking on a marijuana growth and research facility. The groundbreaking is expected to take place on October 5; Bright Green is a company located in Grants, New Mexico, owning the greenhouse property off Sakelares Boulevard. On May 24, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Bright Green’s “$300M investment in high-tech cannabis manufacturing and research facility,” the announcement, while a good outlook for the community economically, caught Cibola County’s elected officials by surprise, with leaders from Cibola County, Village of Milan, and City of Grants governments left wondering about the details in this project. Up until August 15, elected leaders in each of the county’s governments informed the Cibola Citizen that they had not been contacted about Bright Green’s investment.
What is Bright Green?
Bright Green’s investment in Cibola County includes the development of a new facility designed to grow and harvest marijuana, which is expected to provide 170 construction jobs and 200 research jobs. With this $300 million investment, Bright Green expects to bring the future of cannabis growth and research to Cibola, with John Stockwell, Bright Green shareholder, explaining that the facility will have state of the art equipment to cultivate marijuana.
As Bright Green grows marijuana in Cibola, they will sell what they grow to research facilities who receive funding from the National Institute of Health, according to information from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.
The growth and research facility comes as the United States looks to investigate all potential medical uses of cannabis. Prior to last year, only one facility in the entire country – the University of Mississippi’s National Center for the Development of Natural Products – had the ability to grow marijuana for research. Despite the drug being legal for recreation and medical use in certain states, it is not legal federally, because of this, Ole Miss has been the only entity with the federal clearance to grow the drug.
In December of 2020 the Drug Enforcement Administration finalized the regulations which must be followed to obtain a marijuana growth-for-research permit. According to a press release from the DEA, “Under these and other applicable regulations, applicants are responsible for demonstrating they have met various requirements, including requirements to possess appropriate state authority, document that their customers are licensed to perform research, and employ adequate safeguards to prevent diversion.” When the applications were ready to be filed, Bright Green jumped on the opportunity.
What is the new facility?
The marijuana growth and research facility is set to be located at 1033 George Hanosh Boulevard in Grants, across the street from Bright Green’s existing greenhouse facility which has sat dormant for at least two decades. Stockwell informed the Cibola Citizen that Bright Green is looking at another site for one of their buildings just East of Albuquerque. The existing facility is expected to see use, and will be not just for marijuana, but any plant which holds medical value, according to Stockwell.
In a promotional video on BrightGreen.US, the company’s website, Bright Green expects the facility to be the largest pharmaceutical greenhouse in the world. The promotional video touts Dalsem, a company from The Netherlands, as being behind the design, engineering and manufacturing of the plant, this plan was scrapped in favor of working with local labor.
The facility is expected to have significant security, with what Bright Green calls a “High-tech security system,” and a “Guarded fence” with significant lighting and “multilevel security for access to restricted areas” being a significant part of the company’s security plans. Any visitors to the facility should expect to have their ID cards, whether driver’s license or other, checked as they enter the facility. 24-hour surveillance is expected of the plant, with surveillance cameras across the facility possessing heat visuals and super zoom lenses.
This facility is intended to grow marijuana to sell research facilities in the advancement of medical science, and the marijuana grown at this plant is not expected to be sold locally and is not for recreational or medical consumption.
“We’re a research company, we target big pharma,” Stockwell said, “We were one of very few companies to be licensed by the FDA to grow and sell to different research facilities.”
If both buildings are built in Grants, Stockwell said the facility is expected to take around two years to complete; if only one of the facilities is built in the city, the project is expected to take 18 months.
A list of research companies which would buy Bright Green’s marijuana is not publicly available.
Job growth and water consumption
The facility is expected to bring around 370 jobs, between construction and research positions. Bright Green is looking to use local labor in their efforts.
“We want to be a good corporate citizen,” Stockwell explained, saying that part of this effort includes reinvesting in the community. In a recent article, the Cibola Citizen explored Cibola County’s workforce, discovering that roughly a third of the county’s population is eligible to join the workforce; of the county’s available workforce, only 14.4 percent have a bachelor’s degree, according to the United States Census Bureau estimate from 2019.
Despite this, Stockwell explained Bright Green’s plan includes the education of local laborers. The facility expects 200 research jobs, to fill these positions in a county which is suffering a housing crisis with an undereducated workforce, Bright Green must provide training for workers. “Part of the plan is training, but look, it’s a very sophisticated facility,” Stockwell explained. When asked if Bright Green had money allotted to the training of employees, Stockwell said he was unsure and would need to check.
As of July, Cibola County has a current unemployment rate of 9.5 percent according to New Mexico’s Workforce Connection, who tracks economic figures across the state. The department also reports 405 job openings across Cibola County as of September 14.
Jobs may not be Bright Green’s only holdback in developing the facility. According to the scientific, scholarly journal Nature, a single marijuana plant can require a large amount of water, with a single plant requiring 21-liters of water every single day for about three months a year to be healthy, but that “Cannabis cultivation uses a similar amount of water to that of grapes, tomatoes and other vegetables… It has less to do with the idea that cannabis is a particularly thirsty plant, and more to do with where it’s grown.”
The City of Grants in an active state of emergency over failing water wells, and access to water has become much scarcer. With Grants’ Well Number 3 failing to provide adequate water to the city, the government acted with precaution and declared the state of emergency while the administration finds a fix to the issue. This leaves Bright Green in a predicament with water, “We’re bringing water-conscious business to Grants,” Stockwell explained.
“The way we do it [grow marijuana], there is water available. Some water rights are for sale or lease, so we won’t tax the existing water supply,” Stockwell affirmed, “The old facility had a water allotment,” he pondered, “But any increase – We have water locked up. We’re not asking anybody for anything.”
With the United States trying to lower carbon emissions, Nature also reports on the carbon footprint marijuana can leave behind. “A 2012 study of energy use estimated that producing one kilogram of cannabis in an indoor farm is associated with 4,600 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions — roughly equivalent to the emissions from [three] million cars.”
Announcement
News of Bright Green’s large investment in Cibola County came on May 24 when The Office of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham broke the news in a press release. The press release caught local leaders by surprise, who said they hadn’t heard from Bright Green or their efforts to build such a facility in the county to that point.
On several occasions since the press release, the Cibola Citizen has contacted the mayors of Milan and Grants, N.M., and the Chairman of the Cibola County Board of Commissioners, asking if they had heard from Bright Green. Up until September, the answer was consistently “No, we have not heard from Bright Green.”
Bright Green wasn’t the only player missing from local discussions, however, as the same elected leaders said they hadn’t heard from the governor’s office on this announcement.
In a September 9 email, Tripp Stelnicki, Communications Director for Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said, “The state has no involvement with Bright Green Group and thus I cannot speak to it (a press release applauding a proposed plan of action is only that). You will have to ask company and local officials, the latter of whom can speak to local economic development with respect to this and any other projects in the area.” (sic.)
Adding to the confusion behind the announcement, a July 13, 2020, letter to Cibola County Manager Kate Fletcher reads, “Update / The Governor of the State of New Mexico and her staff have worked very hard to find a legal path for Bright Green Corporation to commence operations and employ local residents. / The governor and the state representatives representing Cibola, have taken the initiative to make Cibola a location where research and agricultural developments can prosper creating thousands of high-tech jobs to support this new, first in the nation opportunity. / Larry Carver [owner of the Village of Milan’s Carver Oil] and many other area people have worked very hard and provided guidance to BGC focusing on the jobs that will come with construction, research, maintenance and operations. / We will keep you informed of our development plans that will include major expansions to the existing facility in addi tion to new developments in close proximity. / This current Governor’s vision and hard work of her staff have definitely made a difference in finding a way to support this community. We are excited about the possibilities this will now bring.”
Stockwell explained that Bright Green Corporation has been in contact with the state government and said, “We’ve spent a lot of time working with the state, in lots of different capacities.” This claim is denied by the governor’s office.
Taxes
Bright Green Group holds at least two large plots of property which they pay taxes on in Cibola County, located in Grants.
According to information from the Cibola County Treasurer’s Office, one of the two plots is Parcel Number 2054061314396 just off of George Hanosh Boulevard in Grants, the site of the new construction, which has not, as of September 10, paid the full balance of their property taxes. From 2019, Bright Green owes Cibola County $62,184.38; from 2020 the company owes $63,846.05. Altogether, Bright Green owes Cibola County $126,030.43 in property taxes from this plot.
The other plot owned by Bright Green – the site of the current greenhouse on George Hanosh, Parcel Number 2053062010010 – is fully paid up and no taxes are owed.
Communicating with community leaders
Cibola County’s leadership admitted to being surprised by the governor’s announcement of Bright Green’s investment. The Cibola Citizen has communication between Cibola County government and Bright Green before the governor’s May announcement, Stockwell said that Bright Green had been in contact with the City of Grants under the former manager, and he reiterated Bright Green’s commitment to being a “Good corporate citizen.”
“Why should we have to speak with community leaders, we’re not asking for anything,” Stockwell asserted, “and even if we were, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Stockwell then reinforced Bright Green’s goal, “We expect to be a good corporate citizen. We have waited a long time waiting for approval. It’s been five years, now we’re vetted by the FDA.”
When the Cibola Citizen raised questions about whether Bright Green had the necessary permits to operate in the City of Grants, Stockwell said, “Buddy, I don’t know what you’re getting at, we’ve been vetted by the feds.” The Cibola Citizen explained that a liquor store could be approved by the federal government, even the state government, but without also acquiring city approval, the business cannot operate, to which, Stockewell explained Bright Green would have to look further into permitting.
During this phase of questions, Stockwell alluded to other locations in Cibola and across the state that Bright Green could put the new marijuana growth and research facility.
After questioning by the Cibola Citizen, Stockwell asked if the paper would be responsible for potential jobs not coming to Cibola County. Then, minutes after the first phone call with Stockwell, he called the Cibola Citizen again and said, “We’re not looking – we just want to – nothing is negative, okay?” Shortly later in the conversation, Stockwell suggested that the Cibola Citizen could have a special interview with the company’s Chief Executive Officer Ed Robinson at the groundbreaking ceremony in October. Then, Stockwell told the Cibola Citizen, “We can help you out, if you help us out.”
The Cibola Citizen affirmed to Stockwell that the newspaper will never pull favors, nor will it ever intentionally obscure the facts.
Since at least the beginning of September, Bright Green has begun communicating with local elected leaders and officials, according to multiple officials in various government agencies across the county.
“We wouldn’t be spending $300 million in the community if we thought we weren’t welcome,” Stockwell said, “This is opportunity for New Mexico is greater than John Stockwell, or my family, this opportunity is for all of New Mexico.”
The groundbreaking for Bright Green’s new Cibola facility is expected to be on October 5.