It's the same all over the West: If you control the water, you control the land.
It holds true whether the use of that land is ranching, mining, agriculture, or just people living.
It also crosses my mind that New Mexico has an oil and gas industry, too, and this may be a preemptive strike to prevent the sort of hydraulic fracturing essential to development of many resources there as well as elsewhere.
States like North Dakota are geared up to fight any such attempts, but New Mexico not only might not be, it might have enough liberals to sympathize and help set a dangerous precedent for Federal Control which could be applied elsewhere.
That really is how it starts isn’t it. The Feds will pick on a state that is either hated or poorly disposed to defend itself then uses its easy victory there to squelch other states out of their rights.
It is a fight for our rights we were as they intended never predisposed to win. Their hand picked court is by design & selection rigged against us. What is remarkable is that we are in fact able to win some of the time. But of course that is never enough over the long run because we only really have to lose once.
http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/2012/08/govt-grabbing-water-again-sues-new-mexico-for-water-rights/
Govt Grabbing Water Again: Sues New Mexico for Water Rights
Excerpt:
There is no better way to control “The People” than to control their water.
This is the work of Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. In a letter to them from the Western Governors’ Association:
“…The ramifications of such legal position extend to the very heart of the Western states exclusive ownership and/or management and control of the groundwater resources within their respective boundaries.”
Jay Stein, a lawyer representing the city of Las Cruces, who has filed as an intervener in the case, said the outcome of the hearing could potentially affect the city’s water supply.
“In the pending water rights adjudication in state district court, here in Las Cruces, the court has turned to the United States’ claims. Foremost among these is the issue of the United States’ claims to “groundwater’ or to “project water in the ground,’ as they have termed it.
These claims are not supported by any actual beneficial use of groundwater. Nor are they supported by state law which governs proceedings in the adjudication.
“These water claims are unqualified but potentially could amount to hundreds of thousands of acre-feet per year.”