AG seeks resolution in Rio Grande water fight

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas has joined forces with water users along the lower Rio Grande in hopes of finding a way to end the state’s long-running dispute with Texas over management of the river.

Balderas indicated he’s open to negotiating with the neighboring state, saying it’s possible the case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court could drag out for years and sap even more legal resources.

Balderas met last Wednesday with crop farmers, pecan growers, the city of Las Cruces and New Mexico State University in an effort to bring more stakeholders to the table. The groups will be joining the legal defense.

Balderas, who inherited the case when he took office in 2015, said he wants to put New Mexico in the best position possible so users can get what they are entitled to. Part of that will include more scientific data.

“It’s much more efficient to plan resources than to use taxpayer dollars to litigate in the highest courts in the land,” he said. “This does not seem like a smart use of legal resources, so we’re committing our resources to trying to resolve this dispute.”

Pat Gordon, a Rio Grande Compact commissioner who represents Texas, said the attorney general’s comments are positive.

“Texas is and has always been open to a reasonable and fair resolution of this dispute,” he said.

However, given past relations with the AG’s Office, Gordon expressed some skepticism that New Mexico is serious about settling the case. He added that any resolution out of court would also need the involvement of other parties, such as irrigation districts on both sides of the border.

Texas took its case to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013, asking that New Mexico stop pumping groundwater along the border so that more of the river could flow south to farmers and residents in El Paso.

In dry years when there’s not enough water in the river, chile and onion farmers and pecan growers in southern New Mexico are forced to rely on wells to keep their crops and trees alive. The criticism has been that they’re tapping the shallow aquifer that would otherwise drain back into the river and flow to Texas.

Despite the pumping, New Mexico argues its delivery obligations to Texas are being met.

As one of North America’s longest rivers, the Rio stretches from southern Colorado down to the Gulf of Mexico. More than 6 million people in several major cities depend on it and it irrigates more than 3,100 square miles of farmland in the U.S. and Mexico.