CBP border-wall contractors drilled unauthorized wells in New Mexico groundwater basins, allegedly tampered with meters to hide water diverted

On August 26, 2026, New Mexico's Office of the State Engineer filed suit in the state's Sixth Judicial District Court against the United States and three federal border-wall contractors, alleging illegal well drilling and water-meter tampering in protected groundwater basins along the U.S.-Mexico border. The complaint names Barnard Construction Company Inc. of Bozeman, Montana — the prime contractor on U.S. Customs and Border Protection's border-wall project — along with subcontractors Wyatt Drilling Arizona LLC and Cascade Drilling LP, as well as the United States. It alleges the defendants drilled water wells at multiple sites in the Mimbres, Hachita, and Lower Rio Grande groundwater basins without the State Engineer authorization New Mexico law requires, and tampered with a totalizing meter that would otherwise measure and disclose how much water a well diverts.

State Engineer Elizabeth K. Anderson said the state's permit process exists to protect water-rights holders and that the state would not allow the federal government to evade those protections. The lawsuit seeks an injunction halting further drilling and pumping, proper plugging and abandonment of the unauthorized wells, an accounting of water taken, and double repayment for all illegally diverted groundwater. New Mexico draws more than half its water from underground aquifers, and ranchers along the border have said the unpermitted wells threaten their cattle's water supply.

The suit follows earlier reporting in early August 2026 that the State Engineer's office had already documented at least eight unauthorized wells at multiple sites and threatened to revoke the contractors' drilling licenses. U.S. Customs and Border Protection responded at the time by saying it had instructed the contractor to pause installation of new wells — a step that addressed only future drilling, not the wells already in place, according to a rancher who discovered a well on his property. CBP has described the roughly $47 billion border-wall expansion, which includes work within a federally controlled strip of land along the international boundary, as requiring water for road-building, cement-mixing, and dust control.