I hope the democrats in the State leglsator are paying attention, If new Mexico loses this is an absolute disaster for the entire state on the level of a crisis.
You cannot underscore this point the People of New Mexico cannot survive without water! Water is THE most valuable resource in the State. If Washington is allowed to take control of New Mexico’s water they will control & dehydrate the state.
This fact should be taken as a certainty because New Mexico’s neighbors hold far more sway over the Federal government than does New Mexico. They are simply bigger and more numerous.
State Democrats are going to pay dearly if they can’t convince Obama to back down, and leave the state alone.
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.