The Supreme Court rejects a settlement in a water dispute between New Mexico and Texas

  

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a settlement between Western states over the management of one of North America’s longest rivers.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that the water-sharing deal between Texas and New Mexico can’t go through because the federal government still has concerns about New Mexico water use on the Rio Grande, which Colorado also draws from.

“Having acknowledged those interests, and having allowed the United States to intervene to assert them, we cannot now allow Texas and New Mexico to leave the United States up the river without a paddle,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, reading the majority opinion, which crossed ideological lines as it was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts.

In a dissent, Justice Neil Gorsuch said the United States’ theory about how water should be distributed between the two states is “so aggressive that New Mexico fears it could devastate its economy.” Joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett, he wrote that the high court’s ruling “defies 100 years of this court’s water law jurisprudence.”

New Mexico’s state engineer said it was disappointing the high court scuttled the deal recommended by a federal judge overseeing the case...more