Resource Sharing Quotes
It became a slogan and rallying cry for Long and his followers.
The Rio Grande River flows through New Mexico on its way to Texas. However, for many reasons the river flow is diminishing and only a little water makes it to Texas. Some Texas politicians wanted the New Mexican farmers, who were miles from the river and have paid to drill wells which they use to pump water for their irrigation, to limit their water pumping. They argued that the pumping was diminishing the water in the underground aquifer, and this was causing some of the water flowing down the river to flow into the New Mexico aquifer thereby diminishing the river flow. The New Mexican farmers argue that they paid a great deal for that land because it came with water rights under the ground and the water is theirs. This was one of the many intractable problems of agricultural water allocation in the West where farmers plant many crops that would not normally survive in that part of the country without artificial irrigation.