Practice Areas
RRA’s water law practice addresses a wide range of legal needs under both state and federal law water rights representation, including:
- Complex water rights litigation
- Beneficial use
- Water administration
- Water rights sales, purchases and transfers
- Changes in point of diversion
- Deepening and repair of wells
- Water quality
- Water-related approval and permitting
- Ground water discharge permits
- Discharge permit compliance
- Negotiating permit conditions
- Permit enforcement actions
RRA has extensive experience representing our clients in interstate water and environmental matters. We currently represent the State of New Mexico before the Supreme Court of the United States in Original Action No. 141, State of Texas v. State of New Mexico and State of Colorado. We also represent the State of New Mexico in its clean up action against the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the State of Colorado and various mining companies in the Gold King Mine spill.
Whether it is representing a municipality against a sovereign entity and the Department of the Interior, or representing a flood control entity against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), our attorneys exercise strong litigation experience on behalf of our clients.
Additionally, our firm represents clients along the entire length of the Rio Grande corridor in water related matters. Specifically, this firm is intimately familiar with the complex interconnection of aboriginal, municipal, irrigation, domestic water system, and state rights to the water which flows through the corridor.
Finally, our firm has negotiated and put into effect a land and water trust which allows agricultural users to transfer adjudicated rights from the Rio Grande and its tributaries back to their de-watered properties in order to restart agricultural work in the region.
We have successfully represented clients before the Office of the State Engineer Administrative Hearings Unit, the state district courts, and the New Mexico Court of Appeals. We are accustomed to representing governmental clients before state and federal boards and working with regulatory agencies such as the New Mexico Environment Department, the Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department Mining and Minerals Division, the United States Bureau of Reclamation, the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.