Project Velocity began as a collaboration between the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) and Apaluma, a New Mexico-based technology company. The project was driven by a shared question: how can targeted state investment make the vast amount of environmental and regulatory information held by the agency easier to access and use across programs?
When the project began, the challenge at NMED was not a lack of information, but the opposite. Decades of regulatory records (millions of pages) were spread across formats, systems, and offices, making it difficult for staff to quickly find the information they needed. Project Velocity set out to change that. In less than a year, more than 18 million pages, representing over 715,000 regulatory documents, have been ingested and organized into a single, searchable platform, turning fragmented archives into an accessible and usable resource.
Figure 1. The document search interface for Luma, which allows NMED employees to search over 715,000 regulatory documents.
Project Velocity is supported in part by funding from the Water Data Grant Program, a new program at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources (NMBGMR) to implement the Water Data Act and fund data modernization efforts at New Mexico state agencies. Using a one-time state appropriation, NMBGMR and New Mexico Tech have awarded more than $1 million to New Mexico state agencies in FY26. These awards support projects focused on modernizing water-rights application systems, digitizing water-data records, and conducting discovery work to improve the management and delivery of geothermal data, in addition to supporting Project Velocity at NMED.
But Project Velocity is about more than ingesting documents; it is about how people use information. Working directly with NMED’s bureaus, the project team spent time with staff to understand their daily workflows, pain points, and the questions they are trying to answer. Those conversations shaped the development of Luma, an AI agent that allows NMED employees to ask questions across regulatory documents and related media in plain language. Instead of searching through folders or files, staff can now quickly synthesize information across large volumes of records, helping them move faster, improve consistency, and make better-informed regulatory and environmental decisions.
Figure 2. The Project Velocity Team, including members of NMED and Apaluma, discussing project status with James Kenney, Cabinet Secretary for the New Mexico Environment Department.
At the same time, Project Velocity builds on New Mexico’s early commitment to open data. The project has integrated 15 NMED environmental data APIs, bringing together information on groundwater and drinking water wells, PFAS sampling locations and results, violations, well measurements, and facility details.
For the first time, permits, regulatory records, and environmental datasets can be viewed side by side. This integration of documents and data creates a more complete picture of how regulatory actions intersect with environmental conditions. Areas such as Cannon Air Force Base and Melody Ranch, complex sites that require the analysis across multiple data types to make regulatory decisions, illustrate the insights that emerge when documents, permits, and environmental measurements are considered together.
Figure 3. A screenshot showing how the Luma platform integrates NMED documents with groundwater and surface water data points.
Funding from the Water Data Grant Program has proven essential in increasing the pace of progress; supporting rapid data ingestion, close collaboration with agency staff, and better information access for those working to protect New Mexico’s water and environment.
As Project Velocity moves forward, the work is far from finished. The team will continue ingesting additional regulatory documents while deepening user research with NMED staff to guide the ongoing development of Luma’s AI agent and user interface. These next phases will ensure the platform continues to reflect real workflows and evolving needs, making information easier to find, understand, and use. While significant work remains, continued support from the State of New Mexico will help ensure this effort delivers lasting value—empowering NMED employees today and, ultimately, making environmental data more accessible and transparent for the public.
