U.S. Supreme Court Blocks the Texas’s Rio Grande Water Deal with New Mexico

Texas and New Mexico came up with a compromise that allowed for a higher number of water pumping from New Mexico than the original 1938 agreement stated, but not big enough to run Texas dry.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which is also responsible for delivering water to Texas and New Mexico, did not agree with their allocations and requested intervention because that same water, in the Rio Grande, impacted the international 1906 water treaty that requires the U.S. to deliver 60,000 acre-feet of water from the Elephant Butte Reservoir to Mexico. The federal government argues it cannot meet its obligation if New Mexico does not comply with their obligations.

“You’ve got all these competing responsibilities here that have never been put together in one agreement,” said Gabriel Eckstein, a legal expert on water issues at Texas A&M University. “It’s a number of different projects and agreements that now have to work together so this is why the U.S. government thought to intervene in the dispute.”

The U.S. Supreme Court decided that the U.S. needs to be in agreement with Texas and New Mexico.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the International Boundary and Water Commission, which oversees the international treaty, both declined to comment on the ruling. A spokesperson for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Gage Zobell, a water law expert and attorney with Dorsey & Whitney said today’s decision will allow for the potential increase of federal involvement in water management.

“This has turned that long held principle on its head,” Zobell said. “What we have here is Supreme Court precedent that states that there are federal interests that can actually be brought forward as claims when two states are fighting over water, and that the federal government has a seat at the table, and that has been unheard of.”

Hardberger, the water law professor at Texas Tech, said that the Texas, U.S. and New Mexico will need to go back to the drawing board to figure out how they are going to resolve this conflict. She said there’s an opportunity to continue negotiating, but the court has made it clear that all parties have to be in agreement.

“There’s definitely not enough water in South Texas and Southwest Texas. I think everyone knows that,” Alex Ortiz, the volunteer Water Reservoir Chair for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, adding the ruling doesn’t mean there will be more water or less water available. “It means that it’s possible that there’s more water than what the consent decree would have allowed for but it’s up to the United States now.”

The water disputes come at a time when South Texas battles severe drought conditions, tremendous water shortage issues impacting farmers, and there were these impending conflicts between the U.S. and Mexico about how that water is being shared.

While the water in dispute is not directly related to water deliveries in South Texas, one environmentalist group argues there are downstream effects.

“If there’s not enough water coming into the state as a whole, that puts more pressure on the upper part of the Rio Grande,” Ortiz said. “It changes a little bit of the management strategies for reservoirs that might already be struggling.”

Alejandra Martinez is the Tribune’s Dallas-based environmental reporter. Berenice Garcia is a regional reporter covering the Rio Grande Valley through a partnership with Report for America. This story is published courtesy of the Texas Tribune.The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.