LOCAL COLUMN
OPINION: Let the state engineer do her job
Recently, New Mexico Attorney General Ra煤l Torrez argued in a court filing that the Office of the State Engineer exceeded its authority when it granted an emergency authorization for a well supporting Project Jupiter. Torrez is correct that the same rules should apply to everyone. That principle supports, rather than undermines, the state engineer鈥檚 actions. My review finds her decisions wholly consistent with her authority and duties under New Mexico water law.
This was not the creation of a new water right. It involved an existing right historically used to irrigate a sod farm, and an application to change the place or purpose of use. New Mexico law allows such changes when the state engineer determines they will not impair valid existing rights, violate conservation requirements or run contrary to the public welfare.
The emergency authorization was likewise grounded in law. The original well had deteriorated and no longer worked. Allowing a replacement well within 100 feet was not a radical expansion of use; it was a practical response to a failed point of diversion for an existing right. The statute exists for such circumstances, permitting temporary action when delay could cause serious economic loss and when no foreseeable detriment to other valid rights is found.
These are not casual standards. They are the standards the Legislature assigned to the state engineer, whose office is responsible for technical water-right determinations. Emergency approval does not end the process. It remains subject to notice, protest, hearing, administrative review, final decision and judicial review.
Torrez鈥檚 public intervention in the Project Jupiter permitting dispute therefore raises serious concerns. By weighing in against the state engineer鈥檚 decision while administrative and judicial processes are ongoing, he does more than express a legal opinion. He risks influencing a technical water-rights determination that belongs to an executive agency. Worse, the Attorney General鈥檚 Office commissions the attorneys who represent state agencies, including attorneys working with the Office of the State Engineer. That creates an obvious conflict: The attorney general is publicly opposing the judgment of an executive-branch agency while also occupying a position of professional authority over lawyers who may be expected to defend that agency鈥檚 decision.
The issue should not turn on whether a project is popular, controversial, large or small. A valid water-right owner does not lose due process because a future use draws attention. Protesters, too, deserve to present evidence. Both sides must proceed through the same legal framework, not through selective public pressure.
On the record reviewed, the state engineer did what New Mexico law requires. She evaluated an existing right, a proposed change, and an emergency replacement well close to the failed diversion point. She acted within her authority, and her decision remains open to the checks and balances built into the water-rights process.
If the same rules truly apply to everyone, then they must apply to applicants and protesters. Ultimately, Project Jupiter will have to secure whatever consumptive-use water rights are required for its operations through the ordinary application, notice, protest and hearing process. That is where the merits belong.
The AG鈥檚 role should be to respect that process 鈥� not to prejudge it, not to pressure the lawyers involved, and not to substitute political judgment for the expertise of the OSE. The proper course is simple: Let the State Engineer do her job, let the evidence be heard and let courts decide any legal challenge. Water law should be administered by law and evidence 鈥� not political theater.
John D鈥橝ntonio served as New Mexico state engineer from 2003 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2022.
