The cracked riverbed lays exposed in El Paso, Texas, on May 23, 2022. The riverbed below Elephant Butte Reservoir is often empty for most of the year, as the river only runs during irrigation season, which is shortened by drought. (Photo by Diana Cervantes for Source NM)
All five members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are urging the federal government to “quickly resolve” a decade-old lawsuit from Texas over water rights from the Rio Grande.
“In times of worsening drought and precipitation out of line with historical patterns, it is imperative that our communities, municipalities, farmers, ranchers, and businesses have as much clarity about their future water supplies as possible,” they wrote in a letter dated Thursday. They asked for the case to get across the finish line before the end of the year.
U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich and Reps. Melanie Stansbury, Gabe Vasquez and Teresa Leger Fernández, all Democrats, addressed the one-page letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Texas sued New Mexico in 2013, accusing farmers in the southern part of the state of pulling groundwater meant for Texas under the 1938 Rio Grande Compact between those two states plus Colorado, where the river starts in the Rocky Mountains. Colorado agreed to ensure enough water would reach New Mexico, which in turn agreed to pass along enough to Texas.
The states in 2022 struck a proposed settlement agreement but the federal government opposed it. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June the case could not be settled without the federal government’s go-ahead. A special master overseeing the case has ordered them to resolve the dispute through mediation by Dec. 16.
As of Nov. 7, most of New Mexico was experiencing drought or abnormally dry conditions, and nearly every part of the state had experienced a period of drought in the previous year, the lawmakers wrote.
About 13 million people in the U.S. and Mexico rely on the river and its tributaries for drinking water, while an estimated 1.8 million acres of crops and pastures are irrigated by it, they wrote.
Delaying the lawsuit’s end any further “imperils the ability of water users to prepare for more common and more extreme droughts in the Rio Grande Basin,” New Mexico’s delegation wrote.