Water Law Commons^™

Water Marketing, Jeremy Oat, Laura Paskus

Water Matters!

Water doesn’t just flow around New Mexico in streams and rivers: it also moves around on paper. Since all of the state’s surface-water and most of its groundwater have already been allocated, the only way for cities, developers, or conservation organizations to find new water supplies is to buy and transfer water rights from old uses and places to new uses and places. The N.M. Office of the State Engineer (OSE) approves each of these transfers, most of which are relatively small, but the numbers can add up over time. Between 1982 and 2011, for instance, 21,000 acre-feet of Middle …

Water Quality Regulation, Joanne Hilton, Susan Kelly, James Hogan, Kimberly Kirby, Jerry Schoeppner

Water Matters!

While many of the water issues in New Mexico center around having an adequate supply of water, the quality of the water is just as important as the quantity in supplying water for drinking and other uses that rely on clean water. Protecting water quality is financially more feasible than conducting expensive cleanup programs. New Mexico has a strong interest in water quality regulation to protect public health and the environment and to minimize expenditures for mitigation of contaminated supplies. Water quality is a difficult subject to navigate; there is a complex web of statutes and agency involvement. This paper …

Water Litigation In The Lower Rio Grande, Darcy S. Bushnell

Water Matters!

The water allocation issues are hotly contested in south-central New Mexico and the surrounding area. Today, the river and those who depend on it face more administrative challenges in the face of shrinking water supplies and increased population. These challenges have given rise to two ongoing lawsuits: the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication,New Mexico v. EBID, et al., 96-CV-888 (1996) (N.M. v. EBID) in the New Mexico Third Judicial District Court (adjudication court) and the New Mexico v. United States,et al., D.N.M. 11-CV-691 (2011) (N.M. v.U.S.) in United States District Court of New Mexico (U.S. District Court).

Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System (Ute Pipeline Project), Jerold Widdison, Paul Van Gulick, Darcy S. Bushnell

Water Matters!

The Ute Pipeline Project (Project), officially known as the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System (ENMRWS),is a 151-mile-long pipeline project to provide a sustainable municipal and industrial water supply for several eastern New Mexico communities and a military base. The Congress authorized major federal funding for the Ute Pipeline in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. This important milestone for the project was reached after about 45 years of effort.Attention now shifts to myriad details involved in actually constructing, financing,and administering the project.

The Rio Grande As An International River, Margaret J. Vick

Water Matters!

The Rio Grande is divided into two major river reaches and has different legal regimes for each. New Mexico is primarily concerned with the Rio Grande from the headwaters in Colorado to Ft. Quitman in Texas, a distance of approximately 670 miles. This section of the river is the subject of the1906 Rio Grande Convention (Treaty) between the United States and Mexico. The lower section of the Rio Grande from Ft. Quitman to the Gulf of Mexico is the subject of the 1944 Rivers Treaty between the United States and Mexico; the 1944 Rivers Treaty also includes the Colorado and …

The Human Right To Water And Sanitation: From Political Commitments To Customary Rule?, Gonzalo Aguilar Cavallo

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

The human right to water and sanitation is not explicitly recognized in the International Bill of Human Rights. Some scholars deny the legal existence of this right. However, over the last three decades, a number of legal recognitions of certain aspects of this right in specific universal and regional human rights treaties have allowed scholars to evidence the existence of the legal right to water and sanitation. In addition, an increasing number of high level international documents and declarations explicitly recognize the existence of this right, as reflected in declarations of the European Union and the General Assembly of the …

"El Agua No Se Vende: Water Is Not For Sale!" The Latin American Water Tribunal As A Model For Advancing Access To Water, Mikita A. Weaver

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

At the international level, water is now understood to be a basic human right. However, conflict continues to intensify surrounding indigenous people's access to water as the resource becomes scarcer. In particular, this paper will examine the struggle of indigenous people in Latin America and the creation of the Latin American Water Tribunal (LAWT) as a solution. Section II will describe the LAWT, including the formation of the tribunal, case selection, and the structure of the public hearing. Section III will discuss both how the LAWT overcomes problems with the current legal system and the success of the tribunal as …

About Sdlp

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Mapping The Human Right To Water On The Colorado River, Bret C. Birdsong

Scholarly Works

Colorado River systems-both ecological and legal-are facing a coming crisis. The river snakes its way from the Rocky Mountain crest to the Gulf of California, draining 245,000 square miles encompassing parts of seven of the United States ("U.S.") and two Mexican states. The river and its tributaries provide drinking water for growing population of thirty million in an even larger area because some of its water is diverted to serve out-of-basin demands in both the U.S. and Mexico. Aside from bringing life-sustaining water to people for personal use, it provides irrigation water for some of the most valuable agricultural lands …

New Mexico’S Major Reservoirs: An Overview, Susan Kelly, Diego Urbina

Water Matters!

This paper describes the salient facts about the major water storage reservoirs in New Mexico. For each reservoir, we address the purposes of water storage allowed by law, storage capacity, the responsible operating agency, and some key operational issues. This is by necessity a vast simplification of the topic.Books, articles, research reports, operation manuals, and other materials on these topics run into the hundreds. Millions of dollars have been spent on technical studies and computer models to understand,and sometimes alter, the operations of various dams and reservoirs.

At The Intersection Of Neoliberal Development, Scarce Resources, And Human Rights: Enforcing The Right To Water In South Africa, Elizabeth A. Larson

International Studies Honors Projects

The competing ideals of international human rights and global economic neoliberalism come into conflict when developing countries try to enforce socio-economic rights. This paper explores the intersection of economic globalization and the enforcement of 2nd generation human rights. The focus of this exploration is the right to water in South Africa, specifically the recent Constitutional Court case Mazibuko v City of Johannesburg. While a right to water can be constructed at the international level, the right disappears in the face of neoliberal development measures such as those that are instituted by democratic governments in developing nations faced with limited resources.

The Perils Of Privatization: International Developments And Reform In Water Distribution, Adam D. Link

Global Business & Development Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Inter-American System, Diego Rodriguez-Pinzon

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Land Use And Water Supply, Susan Kelly, Joanne Hilton

Water Matters!

As New Mexico grows and develops, there is a continuing increase in water demand and the need to provide additional supplies. Recent studies estimate the current population of the State to be about two million people, and the population is expected to grow to approximately 3,400,000 by 2050. Regional water plans project water demands for 16 regions within New Mexico. The total projected new water use associated with population growth—the public water supply and associated commercial sectors, exclusive of agriculture, mining, or other industries—ranges from 280,000 to 380,000 acre-feet per year of new water supply needed in the next 40 …

Customary Practice And Community Governance In Implementing The Human Right To Water--The Case Of The Acequia Communities Of Colorado's Rio Culebra Watershed, Gregory A. Hicks, Devon G. Peña

Articles

This paper offers commentary on the appropriateness of viewing, as a human right, the authority to manage water and to participate meaningfully in watershed governance, and it takes as an example the community of Hispano farmers of the Rio Culebra watershed of Southern Colorado in the headwaters of the Upper Rio Grande. In earlier work, the authors have written about the uneasy relationship between the formal system of appropriative water rights under Colorado law and the enduring set of local water norms practiced within acequias—the traditional water governance institutions and irrigation systems of the Culebra's Hispano farmers. The present …

Andy Nuñez: His Life, Career, & Contributions, Bridgette Burbank, Jerold Widdison

Water Matters!

For years and years, reaching back well before his time in the Legislature, Rep. Nuñez has been a strong advocate not only for the state’s people but for its land and water resources.

Carlos Cisneros: His Life, Career, & Contributions, Susan Kelly, Jerold Widdison

Water Matters!

State Senator Carlos Cisneros links New Mexico’s past, present and future.

Privatization, Efficiency, Gender, Development, And Inequality— Transnational Conflicts Over Access To Water And Sanitation, Srini Sitaraman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace by Vandana Shiva. Boston, MA: South End Press, 2005.

and

Gender, Water, and Development edited by Anne Coles and Tina Wallace. New York: Berg, 2005.

and

Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power by Sanjeev Khagram. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.

A Tale Of Two Imperiled Rivers: Reflections From A Post-Katrina World, Sandra Zellmer

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

Hurricanes are a natural, predictable phenomenon, yet the Gulf Coast communities were devastated by the hurricanes of 2005. One year after Hurricane Katrina struck, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers responded to a congressional request for an accounting by admitting culpability for the destruction of New Orleans. Its structural defenses failed not because Congress had authorized only moderate Category 3 protection, which in turn let floodwaters overtop the city's levees, but because levees and floodwalls simply collapsed. The so-called network of federal and local structures was a haphazard system in name only, where floodwalls and levees of varying heights utilized …

Joe Stell's Life, Career, & Contributions, Susan Kelly

Water Matters!

Representative Joe Stell's retirement after 20 years in the New Mexico Legislature has many people wondering: How will we fare without his knowledge and history ofNew Mexico water matters? Stell viewed one of his most important roles as that of helping new legislators get up to speed on w ater issues. We hope that Water Matters! may assist in this role by providing legislators with background information on some of the issues they will encounter. The Utton Center also wanted to acknowledge Joe Stell's outstanding service to New Mexico, and we have therefore included a brief sketch about his career, …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Zoning And Eminent Domain Under The New Minimum Scrutiny, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

Recently the Supreme Court has made it clearer that minimum scrutiny is a factual analysis. Whether in any government action there is a rational relation to a legitimate interest is a matter of determining whether there is a policy maintaining important facts. This has come about in the Court’s emerging emphasis on developing fact-based criteria for determining government purpose. Thus, those who want to affect zoning and eminent domain outcomes should look to what the Court sees as important facts, and whether government action is maintaining those facts with its proposed land use or eminent domain action.

Finding New Constitutional Rights Through The Supreme Court’S Evolving “Government Purpose” Test Under Minimum Scrutiny, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

By now we all are familiar with the litany of cases which refused to find elevated scrutiny for so-called “affirmative” or “social” rights such as education, welfare or housing: Lindsey v. Normet, San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, Dandridge v. Williams, DeShaney v. Winnebago County. There didn’t seem to be anything in minimum scrutiny which could protect such facts as education or housing, from government action. However, unobtrusively and over the years, the Supreme Court has clarified and articulated one aspect of minimum scrutiny which holds promise for vindicating facts. You will recall that under minimum scrutiny government’s action is …

Taking The Stand: The Lessons Of The Three Men Who Took The Japanese American Internment To Court, Lorraine K. Bannai

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Water Justice In South Africa: Natural Resources Policy At The Intersection Of Human Rights, Economics, & Political Power, Rose Francis

ExpressO

This paper analyzes water as a social justice issue in South Africa, a nation that has undergone tremendous political and legal transformations over the last fifteen years, but whose population nonetheless continues to suffer from severe inequities in access to freshwater resources. In light of growing water scarcity worldwide, this paper highlights that legal treatment of water resources has significant socioeconomic and distributive justice impacts, even in progressive constitutional democracies that have embraced principles of human rights and international legal norms. The paper explores historical changes in South African water law and evaluates the current political and legal status of …

Editors' Note, Melanie Nakagawa, Kirk Herbertson

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

A Personal Account: Initiating The Mcnutt Water Project In Saboba, Ghana, Ross Weber

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Human Right To Water: Legal And Policy Dimensions By Salman M.A. Salman And Siobhan Mcinerney-Lankford, Kristen Mcgeeney, Melanie Nakagawa

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Obligations Of State And Non-State Actors Regarding The Human Right To Water Under The South African Constitution, Anna R. Welch

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.