SB 101 WATER LAW VIOLATION PENALTIES

Sen Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez

Actions: [1] SCC/SCONC/SJC-SCC

Scheduled: Not Scheduled

 Senate Bill 101 (SB 101) authorizes the Office of the State Engineer to inspect permit and license holder records. It increases the maximum penalty for a violation of water law and provides for an annual increase in penalties for a violation of water law to account for inflation.  

 Senate Bill 101 (SB 101) requires owners and lessees of certain types of water rights to allow the state engineer (OSE), the water masters and their authorized assistants and agents to inspect or copy records or documents relating to authorized or unauthorized uses of water and to furnish copies to these government officials and agents in a new section in Chapter 72, Article 2 NMSA 1978.
It no longer requires notice of a hearing to be sent by certified mail in Section 72-2-18 NMSA 1978. It changes the process for assessing a civil penalty so it becomes effective when the OSE issues a written notice of violation and increases it up to two thousand dollars a day ($2,000) for each day the violation continues. A compliance order may require the person pay the penalty which is not enforceable until the compliance order becomes final.
SB 101 allows the OSE to adjust the maximum penalty amount on 1 July 2025 and every 1 July thereafter based on the consumer price index as specified. It limits the penalty increase in any given year to one hundred fifty percent of the current penalty. It requires the OSE to post on its website the penalty increase for the next fiscal year (FY) by 1 June 2025 and by 1 June of each successive year.
SB 101 increases the penalty for a violation not directly related to the illegal recovery or use of stored water from one hundred ($100) to two thousand dollars ($2,000) per day of violation; allows for inflation; and requires posting of the increase on the OSE website by 1 June 2025 and every successive 1 June in Section 72-5A-12 NMSA 1978.
It increases the civil penalty from one thousand ($1,000) to ten thousand dollars ($10,000) and makes technical changes concerning suspension or revocation of licenses in Section 72-12-14 NMSA 1978. It has the same provisions for inflation and posting of changes to the maximum penalty as the other sections in the bill.
SB 101 would be effective 1 July 2024.
 

 There is no requirement that owners or lessees must show the OSE or other officials any of their records upon request. 
The maximum daily penalty for most violations is now one hundred dollars ($100) and the maximum civil penalty in a district court action on an appeal of a suspension or revocation of a license is one thousand dollars.