The Elephant Butte Reservoir near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico stores Rio Grande water to be distributed to irrigation districts in Southern New Mexico and far West Texas. (Photo by Martha Pskowski / Inside Climate News)
DENVER — When Judge D. Brooks Smith traveled from Pennsylvania to Colorado, he passed over the 98th Meridian, the longitude line separating the water-rich East from the arid West.
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The former chief judge of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals left a land of rushing rivers and ample rainfall in western Pennsylvania to gather facts in a case called Texas v. New Mexico Supreme Court over water rights from the Rio Grande.
Now a senior judge in the Third Circuit, Smith is serving as a special master to advise the U.S. Supreme Court on what is one of the longest-running disputes over dwindling water in the West, which also involves the federal government.