Experts tell Corrales residents decades of transfers and permits have eroded senior water rights; village urged to act

At a public Corrales Village meeting, water‑rights attorney Tessa Davidson and former New Mexico State Engineer Mike Hammond laid out how New Mexico’s priority system and recent permitting practices have left many local landowners uncertain about who can lawfully use water on Corrales properties and urged village action to protect senior rights.

"The public owns all wet water," Davidson said, explaining New Mexico law distinguishing ownership of the physical water from the separate legal right to use it. She told residents that first‑in‑time priority dates govern who receives water under shortage and cautioned that historic irrigation and pre‑1956 groundwater rights can be lost through nonuse, abandonment or by receiving an automatic domestic permit without steps to preserve an older right.

The presentation walked through core points: New Mexico follows prior appropriation (seniors get water before juniors), possession of land does not automatically confer water rights, and declarations or state‑engineer permits are the main records available in basins like the Middle Rio Grande that have not been adjudicated. Davidson…