State Engineer Elizabeth Anderson
STATE News:
SANTA FE – A bill raising the maximum penalty for illegal water use from $100 to $3,400 per day—the first major update to New Mexico’s water enforcement authority in more than a century—is headed to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk after passing the legislature with near-unanimous bipartisan support.
House Bill 111 modernizes the Office of the State Engineer’s (OSE) enforcement tools against illegal water use at a moment when scarcity is intensifying across New Mexico. Once signed, the measure will mark one of the most significant updates to water enforcement authority since the original penalty structure was set in 1907.
“The passage of HB 111 is a landmark step in protecting New Mexico’s water future,” State Engineer Elizabeth Anderson said. “For too long, our enforcement tools have lagged behind the realities of modern water scarcity. This legislation brings our penalty structure into the 21st century and ensures that illegal water use carries real consequences.”
The legislation updates the maximum penalty for Water Code violations to $3,400 per day, reflecting more than a century of inflation since the original $100 maximum daily penalty was set. It also establishes new penalties for the sale of illegally diverted water, ensuring that violators cannot profit from the theft or illegal sale of water.
The strengthened penalty structure gives the OSE more effective tools to deter illegal diversions, unpermitted well drilling, and failures to comply with metering requirements. It also reinforces protections for valid water rights holders as supplies tighten and reports of unlawful use continue to rise.
As water scarcity intensifies across New Mexico, the OSE has reported a rise in illegal water use and unauthorized well drilling—activities that threaten aquifers, risk contamination, and undermine the rights of lawful water users.
HB 111 received overwhelming bipartisan support, passing the House 51-3 and the Senate 39-3, and was sponsored by Representatives Kristina Ortez and Andrea Romero in the House and Senators Liz Stefanics, James Townsend and President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart in the Senate.
About the Office of the State Engineer:
The Office of the State Engineer is charged with administering the state’s water resources. The State Engineer has power over the supervision, measurement, appropriation, and distribution of all surface and groundwater in New Mexico, including streams and rivers that cross state boundaries. The State Engineer is also Secretary of the Interstate Stream Commission. The nine-member Interstate Stream Commission is charged with separate duties including protecting New Mexico’s right to water under eight interstate stream compacts, ensuring the state complies with each of those compacts as well as investigating, conserving and protecting the waters of the State, in addition to water planning. Visit https://www.ose.state.nm.us.