{"id":597128,"date":"2018-06-27T19:13:21","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T01:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=597128"},"modified":"2018-06-28T08:08:26","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T14:08:26","slug":"supreme-court-ruling-could-impact-texas-new-mexico-water-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/supreme-court-ruling-could-impact-texas-new-mexico-water-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court ruling could impact Texas-New Mexico water fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_597131\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-597131\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/BestOf-2014-001-771x517.jpg\" alt=\"Rio Grande\" width=\"771\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/BestOf-2014-001-771x517.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/BestOf-2014-001-336x225.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/BestOf-2014-001-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/BestOf-2014-001-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/BestOf-2014-001.jpg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Erich Schlegel \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Rio Grande has been the lifeblood of the valleys and civilizations it flowed through for more than 3,000 years. As cities and farms suck it dry and a warming climate makes it evaporate faster, the river&#8217;s future has never been more uncertain.<\/p><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">A U.S.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Supreme Court decision on Wednesday in a water fight between Florida and Georgia could have implications for a similar legal battle between Texas and New Mexico over the Rio Grande water supply, legal experts said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Five years ago, Texas sued New Mexico, asserting that New Mexico is in violation of the Rio Grande Compact, an interstate agreement that has governed water allocations between the two states and Colorado for 80 years. New Mexican farmers pumping the river\u2019s groundwater cause river levels in Texas to drop, depriving Texans of the water they&#8217;re obligated to, the state argued.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Over 1,000 miles away along the Florida-Georgia border, the Sunshine State is accusing its neighbor of taking more than its fair share of water from the Apalachiola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/27\/texas-water-fight-new-mexico-could-be-impacted-scotus-decision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In Wednesday\u2019s decision, the high court remanded the case to the court-appointed special master responsible for issuing\u00a0recommendations to the court. The special master ruled that while Georgia\u2019s overuse of water might have caused ecological and economical harm, Florida\u2019s case should be dismissed for failure to prove a possible resolution to the problem.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But in a 5-4 decision, the court decided Wednesday that Florida only needs to prove harm, lowering the burden of proof for states locked in similar water battles with upstream neighbors. Now, states have more flexibility when it comes to providing evidence on how to remedy solutions. If the court lets this ruling set the standard for proving harm in water rights cases, this could bode well for Texas.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Like <em>Florida v. Georgia<\/em>, Texas\u2019 case also awaits a preliminary ruling from a special master.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThe decision issued today is the Supreme Court\u2019s most recent opinion on how to take all of the laws associated with equitable apportionment and put it into one place,\u201d said Lara Fowler, an environmental attorney and professor at Pennsylvania State University. \u201cToday\u2019s case will be informative not only for the Texas case, but for future cases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Florida and Georgia\u2019s water spat is slightly different from the fight in the West \u2014\u00a0unlike Texas and New Mexico, the states\u2019 water use is not divvied\u00a0up by a compact. And <em>Florida v. Georgia<\/em> doesn\u2019t involve the connection between surface water and groundwater, as Texas\u2019 argument does.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But both cases do dive into how the court establishes and reevaluates equitable apportionment of water use between states, Fowler said.\u00a0While\u00a0<em>Texas v. New Mexico <\/em>focuses on the interpretation of a compact, at the core of it all is whether that compact divides water fairly.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">And today&#8217;s ruling seems to signal a more active involvement from the Supreme Court in straightening out water battles, said Todd Votteler, president of Collaborative Water Resolution LLC.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSometimes, I think these issues gather a lot more attention than some of the water issues within individual states themselves,\u201d Votteler said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Votteler and Fowler envision both cases ending in some form of mediation, although that\u2019s easier said than done, and could take years as the cases sit in court. If the states don\u2019t reach mutual agreement, then it\u2019s on the high court to make a decision.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThe states are fiercely territorial,\u201d Fowler said. \u201cThey really don\u2019t want another state telling them what to do. The courts are a very blunt instrument for making decisions about what are really complicated issues. They\u2019re used to doing that, but it doesn\u2019t mean states will necessarily like the outcome.\u201d<script async src=\"https:\/\/cdn.texastribune.org\/pixel\/dot.min.29c708b3d0da5d17a725.js\" integrity=\"sha384-8Xwf\/TlQnmHiajg1t3dn8w4qlF1rmV33o5NAQVXYu0T2q3rHV5579zrSmRjh+XnM\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\" data-tt-canonical=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/27\/texas-water-fight-new-mexico-could-be-impacted-scotus-decision\/\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The high court&#8217;s decision lowers the burden of proof for states locked in similar water battles with upstream neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":597131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[147,2260,277],"class_list":["post-597128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-environment","tag-texas","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}