New Mexico sued the Trump administration Wednesday, accusing federal officials and border wall contractors of drilling water wells without permits and pumping groundwater needed for construction projects along the U.S.-Mexico border, setting up a legal fight over state authority to regulate scarce water resources in the arid Southwest. The lawsuit, filed by Elizabeth Anderson, New Mexico's state engineer, alleges that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and several contractors bypassed the state's permitting process while constructing nearly 180 miles of border barriers in southern New Mexico.
The state is seeking a court order to halt further drilling and water use, require remediation of existing wells, and force the defendants to repay water that officials say was unlawfully withdrawn from underground aquifers. "Water is a precious resource in New Mexico, and the residents, ranchers, and farmers whose water is being stolen by the federal government deserve justice," Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a press release. The complaint names the United States, Barnard Construction Company, Wyatt Drilling Arizona, Cascade Drilling, and several individuals associated with the drilling operations as defendants.
Newsweek contacted CBP, Barnard Construction Company, Cascade Drilling and Wyatt Drilling Arizona for comment via email outside office hours and is awaiting a response. At the center of the case is a dispute over whether the federal government must comply with New Mexico's water laws when drilling wells on federal land. State officials say decades of federal statutes, court rulings and established Western water law make clear that groundwater appropriations are subject to state regulation regardless of land ownership.
Federal officials, according to the lawsuit, argued that wells located on federal property are exempt from state permitting requirements. The state says that contractors working on the border wall drilled multiple wells in regulated groundwater basins without obtaining permits from the Office of the State Engineer. Inspectors also documented what they described as improperly constructed wells, unauthorized diversions of water, unapproved plugging of failed wells and changes to water meters that state officials say hampered their ability to track groundwater use.
The lawsuit follows months of inspections and correspondence between state officials and Customs and Border Protection. According to the complaint, New Mexico first learned of the drilling activity in March, following a complaint from a rancher in the Hachita Underground Water Basin. State inspectors subsequently identified a growing number of wells associated with the border wall project in the Hachita, Mimbres and Lower Rio Grande groundwater basins.
State officials argue that the alleged violations carry consequences beyond the construction project itself. Much of southern New Mexico relies heavily on groundwater for agriculture, ranching and household use, and some of the basins involved have long faced water supply constraints. The complaint also raises concerns that unregulated pumping near the Rio Grande could affect New Mexico's obligations under water-sharing agreements with Texas.
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