The Vinton stretch of the Rio Grande just north of El Paso at Vinton Road and Doniphan Drive on May 23, 2022. The river below Elephant Butte Reservoir in Southern New Mexico through Far West Texas is dry most months of the year, only running during irrigation season. (Photo by Diana Cervantes for Source NM)
The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing the federal government to block the deal Texas and New Mexico proposed to end a decade of litigation over Rio Grande water.
The decision made Friday morning now raises questions for if the states, and the federal government will have to go back to the negotiation table or stand before a judge.
The order stated that the 2022 deal hammered out between New Mexico, Colorado and Texas to measure water deliveries at El Paso — and allocate the river in southern New Mexico and far west Texas at a 57-43 split — was not in line with Rio Grande Compact, the 85-year old legal agreement dividing the river.
In the majority opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the federal government has a right to be a part of the deal and has claims under the 1939 Rio Grande Compact.
“We cannot now allow Texas and New Mexico to leave the United States up the river without a paddle. Because the consent decree would dispose of the United States’ Compact claims without its consent,” Ketanji Brown wrote.
Justice Neil Gorsuch was the only judge to write a dissent.
The original lawsuit was brought in 2014 by Texas alleging that New Mexico was groundwater pumping below Elephant Butte reservoir, taking Rio Grande water Texas argued belonged to it under the 1939 compact.141orig_d18f
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