Tension Between Texas And Mexico Over Water

Is Mexico messing with Texas?

As a Texas-Mexico water feud heats up, the backdrop is a major drought affecting both countries and tension over how to enforce a longtime water agreement.

Under the terms of a treaty signed in 1944, "the United States is obliged to give Mexico water from the Colorado River, while Mexico must transfer water from the Rio Grande and its tributaries," the Washington Post recently reported.

But Mexico is not keeping up its end of the bargain.

"The accounting for the water sharing is tallied in five-year cycles. And at this point, in the fourth year of the present cycle, Mexico owes the United States 380,000 acre-feet of water, more than all the water consumed in a year by the 1.5 million residents of the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas," the report said.

Some Texas politicians have spoken out on the issue.

“This issue is life or death for some of our farmers, their ability to support their families and make a living,” said Democratic Texas state Rep. Eddie Lucio III, per the report. “We’ve been good neighbors. We just want to share and share alike.”

Mexico says it’s doing its best. Mexican officials do not "dispute its water debt but [say] that Mexico's own shortages make it impossible, at this point, to supply the annual 350,000 acre-feet that it should be giving to the United States," the report said.

According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, a state agency, "The failure of Mexico to consistently deliver water in accordance with the 1944 water treaty between the United States and Mexico significantly harms Texas interests."

The issue has risen up to the top of the political process.

"Governor Rick Perry (R) wrote to President Barack Obama in 2013, asking him and Secretary of State John Kerry to use diplomatic pressure to force Mexico to provide the water. According to the Congressional Research Service, Obama subsequently raised the issue with President Enrique Peña Nieto during a trip to Mexico later that year. Nieto stressed his commitment to solving the water problem as soon as possible," The Wire reported.

For more on policy and politics, check out Water Online's Regulations & Legislation Solution Center.

Image credit: "TSLAC Represents Texas at the National Book Festival (Washington DC) 9.21.13," Texas State Library And Archives Commission © 2013, used under an Attribution 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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