New Mexico Supreme Court rules partial groundwater forfeiture allowed
Sep. 27—A well that once serviced steam locomotives at a long-defunct railroad depot in a ghost town was at the center of the state Supreme Court's ruling Monday that New Mexico law allows groundwater rights to be partially forfeited.
In a unanimous decision, the high court upheld lower court rulings allowing the current owner of the well in Sierra County to sell the rights to some of the unused water.
New Mexico law allows the forfeiture of groundwater rights if the well is no longer serving a beneficial use, but the statute doesn't say whether a portion of the rights can be forfeited.
The state Supreme Court's decision settled that question, clearly ruling the law permits the forfeiture of rights to any unused portion of groundwater. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Justice David K. Thomson wrote that "forfeiture is an essential enforcement mechanism" for the doctrine of beneficial use.
The doctrine he cited is recognized in the state constitution and serves as the foundation for New Mexico's water law.
The case involved Toby Romero, who in the 1990s bought property containing the well at a former railway site in Cutter, a mining town near Truth or Consequences that shut down decades ago after the veins dried up.
The Court wrote that the law, "if interpreted to disallow partial forfeiture, would subvert enforcement of the critical policies of preventing waste and using water 'to do the greatest good to the greatest number.' "
