http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/us/new-mexico-farmers-push-to-be-made-a-priority-in-drought.html?hp

Just after the local water board announced this month that its
farmers would get only one-tenth of their normal water allotment this year,
Ronnie Walterscheid, 53, stood up and called on his elected representatives to
declare a water war on their upstream neighbors. “It’s always been about us
giving up,” Mr. Walterscheid said, to nods. “I say we push back hard right now.”

The drought-fueled anger of southeastern New Mexico’s farmers and ranchers is
boiling, and there is nowhere near enough water in the desiccated Pecos River to
cool it down. Roswell, about 75 miles to the north, has somewhat more water
available and so is the focus of intense resentment here. Mr. Walterscheid and
others believe that Roswell’s artesian wells reduce Carlsbad’s surface water.

For decades, the regional status quo meant the northerners pumped groundwater
and the southerners piped surface water. Now, amid the worst drought on record,
some in Carlsbad say they must upend the status quo to survive. They want to
make what is known as a priority call on the Pecos River.

A priority call, an exceedingly rare maneuver, is the nuclear option in the
world of water. Such a call would try to force the state to return to what had
been the basic principle of water distribution in the West: the lands whose
owners first used the water — in most cases farmland — get first call on it in
times of scarcity. Big industries can be losers; small farmers winners.

The threat of such a move reflects the political impact of the droughts that are
becoming the new normal in the West. “A call on the river is a call for a
shakeout,” explained Daniel McCool, a University of Utah political scientist and
author of “River Republic: The Fall and Rise of America’s Rivers.”

“It’s not going to be farmers versus environmentalists or liberals versus
conservatives,” he said. “It’s going to be the people who have water versus the
people who don’t.” And, he said, the have-nots will outnumber the haves.