Feds' Claim To Rio Grande
Water Rankles Everyone Else

LAS CRUCES, N.M. —(AP)— Neither New Mexico's water districts nor its irrigators will suffer if the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation proves in court that it owns the water rights in the Rio Grande project, a reclamation commissioner says.

The bureau is not asking to usurp New Mexico's water rights administration system, Eluid Martinez, a former state engineer, told the annual New Mexico Water Conference here last week.

Rather, he said, it wants to prove its own place in the state's water priority system and compel the state engineer to administer the bureau's water rights like those of other holders.

But other speakers criticized the lawsuit and said the Rio Grande Compact, which guides the administration of the river, must be protected.

The U.S. government in June filed a federal lawsuit against water users in southern New Mexico and Texas in an effort to clarify its water rights on the Rio Grande.

The government contends it owns a huge quantity of Rio Grande water from Elephant Butte Reservoir downstream. The government also contends that as more water wells are drilled, the burgeoning region could use so much water it could run into trouble meeting water obligations to Texas or Mexico.

Rio Grande Compact Commissioner Jack Hammond of Texas said that if the Bureau of Reclamation wants to prove it owns the water rights, it should make its case in New Mexico state court along with other parties to a state water rights adjudication lawsuit.

"I do not believe the federal government provides water to irrigators," he said. "I believe God or nature, depending on your point of view, provides it; the bureau provides the mechanism."

Colorado State Engineer Hal Simpson said questions about the Rio Grande Compact should be resolved through its commission and individual states.

New Mexico State Engineer Tom Turney said the Rio Grande Compact also is being challenged by Indian tribes, an environmental group and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The compact states nothing in its provisions shall be construed as affecting obligations to Indian tribes. Turney said attorneys for Isleta del Sur pueblo near El Paso, Texas, and representatives of a pueblo near Albuquerque have told him their rights to Rio Grande water come before all others.

In addition, the environmental activist group Forest Guardians filed a federal lawsuit May 6 seeking to force the compact to meet requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, he said.

And the EPA's Border XXI framework document states Border XXI participants may rewrite U.S.-Mexico border states' water law — raising the possibility they could try to revise provisions of a 1906 treaty which allocates 60,000 acre-feet of Rio Grande Project water to Mexico, Turney said.

Rep. Joe Skeen, R-N.M., and Lt. Gov. Walter Bradley criticized the federal government's approach to environmental issues, which Skeen called a "Father knows best" attitude in which the "children" — states, counties, municipalities and water managers — "should quietly acquiesce to the Old Man's directives."

"While we all appreciate the Old Man, the vast majority of Southwesterners prefer to initiate and participate, on at least an equal basis, in any and all actions which effect their future," he said.

He said it's important to address the equitable distribution of water without creating a war between those who hold a stake in it.

"Neither Texas nor New Mexico can claim sole proprietorship of the water resources our states share. Neither can the federal government be allowed to claim ownership of a resource, and arbitrarily redistribute it to non-historical uses, without the willing compliance of the stakeholders," he said.

Bradley called the Bureau of Reclamation lawsuit a power play.

"I have never seen as many assaults on private property rights as in the last few years — and water is a property right," he said.