CNN  , — ,
A boundary dispute between the US and Mexico is causing more conflicts. But this issue is not about movement, it’s about liquid.
Under an 80- year- outdated convention, the United States and Mexico promote waters from the Colorado River and the Rio Grande, both. But in the hand of extreme drought and searing heat, Mexico has fallen far behind in sales, putting the government’s ability to meet its obligations in critical question.
Some politicians claim that they ca n’t give what they do n’t have.
Farmers in South Texas, who are also dealing with a lack of rain, have a hard time swallowing it. They claim that the country’s future is uncertain due to Mexico’s lack of water. Some Texas officials have urged the Biden administration to deny aid from Mexico until it can meet the funding gap.
Both nations are scoffing at the possibility of a long, hot summer, and many are hoping for a surprise to expand Mexico’s drought-stricken rivers. According to experts, the “pray- for- rain” strategy is a difficult, short-term solution to a knotty, long-term issue.
In a greater, drier world, the issue highlights the enormous difficulties of navigating how to promote shrinking water sources.
A creek in collapse
According to a convention from 1944, Mexico is required to give 1.75 million acre feet of water from the Rio Grande to the US every five times, and the US is required to send 1.5 million acre feet of water from the Colorado River to Mexico each year.
One acre-foot of liquid is enough to storm one acre of land a foot full. Between the two nations, approximately 490 billion gallons of water are exchanged every from the US and 570 billion gallons of water are exchanged every between Mexico and Mexico.
Mexico is falling far behind in its duty, said Maria Elena Giner, the US director of the International Boundary and Water Commission, the bi- federal system that oversees the agreement.
” We’ve simply gotten about a month’s worth of water and we’re now well into our third time”, she told CNN. The latest period ends in 2025, in October.
One of North America’s longest river, the Rio Grande, flows about 1,900 miles from Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, through three US and five Hispanic state before coming to a stop in the Gulf of Mexico. It is known as the Rio Bravo.
Years of over- separation to assist farmers and rising populations, along with culture change- fueled heat and drought, have taken a toll.
As heat drives snowpack loss in the mountains, the river’s flows are falling, said Alfonso Cortez Lara, a director at the College of the Northern Border.
Roughly 200 miles of the Rio Grande, stretching from Fort Quitmen to Presidio, Texas, is known as the “forgotten reach”, where the riverbed is often bone- dry through the year. The largest tributary of the Rio Grande, Chihuahua, is brought back to life by waters from the Rio Conchos in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico.
The river’s unpredictability is the reason Mexico’s commitments are based on five- year , — rather than annual — cycles, Giner said. ” There’ll be times of deficits and surplus”.
Although the treaty has no enforcement mechanism, shortfalls in a five-year cycle can be rolled over and must be made up in the following.
During the first few decades of the treaty, all went well. But from the early 1990s,” something changed”, said Giner. Less water was entering the river.
The Mexico-US treaty calculated water availability based on first-half of the 20th century data, much like the Colorado River deal between the southwest US states. It foresaw short- term droughts, but not multi- year megadroughts.
Mexico ended two five- year cycles in deficit, from 1992 to 2002. Vianey Rueda, a researcher at the University of Michigan who is knowledgeable about the 1944 water treaty, said,” This is the first time we really had these heightened political tensions between the two ( countries ) regarding water.
Now, nearing another five year cycle, Mexico is facing a similar situation. Only this time it’s more intense, Rueda said. ” The water delivery system has stayed the same, but the water crisis has worsened”.
This crisis is the result of a complex combination of factors.
As the Rio Grande’s development increased, the demand for water increased. The North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994, led to an explosion of farms and maquiladoras ( factories ) in Mexico, many growing and making products destined for US and Canadian markets. On both sides of the border, people became more urbanized and people grew.
The climate crisis’s constant drumbeat causes more frequent and prolonged heat and drought, which are fundamental to everything. You have treaties intended for a stable environment, but now you’re trying to put them into effect in a destabilized environment, Rueda said.
Pain in both countries
The Falcon and Amistad Reservoirs, which straddle the border, receive water from Mexico and supply both homes and farms. Both reservoirs have historically low capacities: Amistad was at less than 26 % capacity in mid-June, and Falcon was only 9.9 %.
” Farmers in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas are either out of water or running out of water quickly”, said Brian Jones, a farmer who grows irrigated cotton, corn, sorghum and soybeans in Hidalgo County, Texas, and a board member of the Texas Farm Bureau.
Low water deliveries from Mexico, combined with a dearth of rain in the region, are threatening the state’s citrus industry, Jones told CNN, but the situation is even worse for sugar.
” The sugar industry is lost to Texas and will never return”, he said.
The state’s only sugar mill, which employed more than 500 full- time and seasonal workers, shut in February after more than 50 years of operation.
The mill’s owners, the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, blamed Mexico. ” For over 30 years, farmers in South Texas have been battling with Mexico’s failure to comply with the provisions of the 1944 Water Treaty”, it said in a news release announcing the closure.
Some state leaders have demanded harsh penalties. ” Mexico’s lack of timely water deliveries puts all Texas agriculture at risk”, Texas Rep. Monica De La Cruz, a Republican,  , said in February, calling on the Biden administration to “hold Mexico’s feet to the fire”.
De La Cruz added language to the House of Representatives ‘ 2025 budget bill that would withhold aid to Mexico until it agrees to deliver on the water treaty. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn both have Republican support for De La Cruz in the US Senate. On Wednesday, the bill passed a procedural hurdle, but it’s not certain whether it will amass enough votes to pass through Congress.
There are many ways to deal with the pain of water scarcity. South of the border, people are also suffering.
Nearly 90 % of Mexico is affected by its most severe and expansive drought since 2011. With concerns that cities like Mexico City could be heading for a “day zero,” on which the water runs dry, has become a more contentious subject.
Northern Mexico’s situation is particularly bad. The impact is seen in the groundwater levels and in many of the dams in northern Mexico, according to Victor Magaa Rueda, a climate scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The entire state of Chihuahua has been in drought since February, with data from the end of May showing nearly 40 % is in “exceptional drought”, the most severe designation.
” Not a single drop of rain has fallen in more than eight months”, said Salvador Alcántar, a congressman in Chihuahua. ” We have to learn to deal with climate change, and it is here to stay.” He told CNN that farmers have been suffering for years because river water and groundwater supplies are rapidly declining.
In 2020, tensions reached a boiling point when the Mexican government decided to release water from one of Chihuahua’s dams in order to fulfill its water sharing obligations. Farmers clashed, which the National Guard shot a woman in the head, leading to deadly consequences.
Again Chihuahua is struggling. What can we realistically be expected to pay with if there is no water? No- one can be forced to give away what they do n’t have”, Alcántar said.
A conflict with no winners
The difficulty of reshaping 80- year- old water- sharing agreements is that they’ve created reliance.
According to Sarah Porter, director of the Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, people increasingly rely on water rights to grow agriculture, cities, and industrialize. ” And once you have that reliance, it becomes extremely painful to change”, she told CNN.
A full renegotiation of the treaty is unlikely. Instead, amendments are agreed between the countries through a “minute” process. Issues ranging from data-sharing to changes to water delivery can be covered by minutes.
At the end of last year, discussions for a new minute to improve reliability of Mexico’s water deliveries stalled as a result of Mexico’s focus on elections. Now that they’re over, with climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum set to take office in October, negotiations are ramping up again, said Giner. We’ve asked Mexico to come up with a strategy for how they’re going to reduce their current deficit.
In a tropical storm or active hurricane season, some people have hopes. However, it’s difficult to predict when and where rain will fall and storms will strike. According to UNAM’s Magna Rueda, Mexico would be” totally exposed to what nature decides about our water future” if it relied solely on storms to combat water shortage.
In the short term, “if there’s no water to distribute, there’s nothing we can do”, Giner said, but she remains positive. She is pushing for resources to promote water conservation and efficiency and increase drought resilience.
Sheinbaum, the president- elect, has committed to prioritizing water issues. However, when the current five-year cycle expires in 2025, US relations could become even more complicated.
Ultimately, there needs to be a recognition that water sharing agreements must adapt to a changing climate, Rueda said.
Instead of seeing water as a zero- sum game, where one party’s gain is contingent on the other’s loss, both sides should realize they are” suffering the same thing because of climate change”, she said.
” Then you start eliminating that zero- sum game, you start saying we’re both losing essentially. Nobody’s actually winning”.
CNN’s Brandon Miller and Jack Guy contributed reporting
