State environmental regulators say they have a deal to start cleaning up southern New Mexico’s troubled drinking water system. Residents say it feels more like putting a price tag on their mistrust.
This week, the New Mexico Environment Department announced a settlement with the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority, or CRRUA, but people in Sunland Park and Santa Teresa insist the agreement does not make their tap water any safer to drink. Instead, they warn it could stick them with higher bills for water they still will not trust.
What the settlement covers
According to Source NM, the New Mexico Environment Department announced on Feb. 11 that CRRUA agreed to pay $189,000 to resolve alleged violations that include arsenic exceedances, failures to notify customers about high pH, and other sanitary-survey findings tied to broken equipment and a lack of training.
The department said part of the civil penalty will go into a fund for statewide water-quality testing and framed the settlement as a push to force the utility and its board to confront long-running problems.
Residents: fines are not a water plan
Residents told KVIA the deal feels cosmetic compared with what families have been living with.
"I found news of this settlement to be disturbing," Santa Teresa resident Vivian Fuller said, pointing to rising bills alongside repeated reports of discolored, smelly water coming out of taps.
Daisy Maldonado, a Southern New Mexico organizer, told the station the agreement "does little to actually ensure" safe drinking water for households served by CRRUA, arguing it leaves everyday families paying the price without real assurances.
State action goes beyond fines
Regulators are not just writing tickets. The New Mexico Environment Department also filed a lawsuit last spring asking the Third Judicial District Court to appoint an independent manager to run CRRUA, according to reporting by WaterWorld.
If the court agrees, that appointment would effectively place the utility in receivership, with a third party handling daily operations instead of CRRUA’s current board.
CRRUA points to test results
CRRUA, for its part, says it has been fixing equipment, training operators, and posting test data to prove it. CRRUA published January 2026 operational-control results that show arsenic levels below the EPA limit at its four arsenic treatment facilities.
The utility says those results reflect progress after upgrades and additional operator training and argues that this record is what residents should use to judge whether the water is safe.
How trust fractured
The settlement and the state’s push for an outside manager come after a series of high-profile breakdowns and surprise sampling that rattled public confidence.
In March 2024, unannounced tests by the Environment Department found that one sample from CRRUA’s industrial area, taken at 2401 Airport Road in Santa Teresa, measured 0.0160 mg/L of arsenic. That result exceeded the federal drinking water limit, according to La Daily Post.
Later state sanitary surveys described operational and sensor failures that led to elevated pH events and, in 2023, to untreated water reaching customers’ taps. Those findings further eroded local confidence, as documented by KVIA.
What’s next
Even with the new fine in place, the Environment Department is still pressing for a structural overhaul. The agency is asking a Doña Ana County judge to appoint a third party to run CRRUA, and court records show a hearing on that request is set for August, according to Source NM.
Meanwhile, community groups are pushing for their own list of safeguards: free arsenic test strips, alternative third-party water during incidents, a pause on rate increases, and other protections. Those demands were laid out earlier when Residents Sue Camino Real tracked the growing dispute.
For now, the settlement buys the state and CRRUA a breather from immediate litigation, but not the trust of people who turn on their faucets every day. Residents and local advocates say they plan to keep pressing for independent oversight and clear, consistent proof that the water running into their homes is safe to drink.
