Water Battle, Mexico and the U.S.

More than a five hour’s drive south from the El Paso-Juarez area, the city of Delicias stands out as a regional breadbasket in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Robust agricultural operations produce dairy products, vegetables, grains, and nuts.

But where agriculture is abundant, demand for water also is strong — especially in deserts like northern Mexico. And years of severe drought, such as those that have characterized much of the past decade, conflicts over water exacerbate.

Indeed, disputes over the region’s major river— the Rio Conchos — characterized much of 2020. An uprising of about 3,000 farmers pitted themselves against the Mexican government, capturing control of a key reservoir and dam, to prevent water from being sent to the U.S.

Via an important 1944 treaty, the two countries share water from the Rio Conchos, which winds its way north into the Rio Grande. Facing a deadline that wrapped up a five-year water-sharing cycle, Mexico was behind on its required water deliveries to its northern neighbor.

Mario Lopez, 74, owns a 15-acre pecan orchard near Delicias. He’s also a retired federal civil engineer specializing in hydrology, giving him insight into the situation from two perspectives. Water scarcity caused by the drought on the Rio Conchos is creating a dire situation, he says.  Farther south in the state, farmers have access to underground water to supplement their river water. But, he says, even that is drying up.

“Here in Chihuahua where I live, we’re seeing the devastation of the production of pecan orchards,” he told the North American Project in December. “This has been so problematic this year, and if in 2021 we’re faced with this again, it’s really going to get even more complicated if it doesn’t rain.”

The tensions have been highlighted as an international water battle. While not incorrect, the framing tends to miss that the conflict is of a sort not unusual along rivers, said Professor Josiah Heyman, an anthropologist at the University of Texas at El Paso. It boils down to a fight between upstream and downstream water users. And, in the case of the Rio Conchos, a portion of the downstream users happen to be on the other side of an international border.

“This happens all over the world,” said Heyman, who directs UTEP’s Center for Inter-American and Border Studies. “There’s a lot of conflict now between Ethiopia and Sudan and Egypt because Ethiopia controls important sources for parts of the Nile River.”

 While the U.S. and Mexico seem to have resolved their disputes for now, underlying problems remain — such as intense water use in a dry region and increasing predictability of rainfall due to climate change — that will likely continue to fuel turmoil well into the foreseeable future. This means, absent planning and intervention, people on both sides of the international border will be exposed to the detrimental effects of water shortages, including crop loss, damage to their economies, and continuing political and legal battles over competing demands.

Dividing the Rio Grande

The Rio Grande is a 1,900-mile long river that runs from its headwaters in southern Colorado, through New Mexico, and into Texas, where it forms the official boundary between the U.S. and Mexico until reaching its terminus at the Gulf of Mexico. In Mexico, the same river is known as the Rio Bravo del Norte, or Fierce River of the North.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, efforts got underway in the United States to harness the natural flow of the Rio Grande. The resulting infrastructure essentially split the river into two segments. And it meant that water in the northern segment of the Rio Grande — from Colorado to a point about 80 miles southeast of El Paso — is almost entirely used up each year by agriculture and other demands. This Upper Rio Grande segment irrigates southern Colorado, as well as northern and central New Mexico, before flowing into the reservoir of Elephant Butte Lake. When water is released from that dam, the river winds through south-central New Mexico, passing Las Cruces and entering far West Texas. The river dries out near the historic Fort Quitman, as it encounters what’s known as the Forgotten Reach, a roughly 120-mile-long, human-caused dry patch.

 “Part of this story is we’ve used up so much water in New Mexico and far West Texas and Colorado that the water doesn’t get downstream,” said Heyman, the UTEP professor. “If there’s water in the Forgotten Reach, it just comes from local run-off and storms.”

Rio Conchos feeds the Rio Grande

At the end of the Forgotten Reach, near Presidio, Texas, the second segment begins. This part, the Lower Rio Grande, waters the agriculturally rich southernmost part of Texas, which produces crops ranging from citrus to onions to sugar cane.

Through to the Gulf of Mexico, the flow in the Rio Grande’s southernmost segment is generated by tributary rivers and rainfall run-off in both the U.S. and Mexico. But most water comes from Mexico. A major source is the river that stirred so much controversy in 2020 — the Rio Conchos. That means, in addition to supplying farmers in Chihuahua, farmers in south Texas and growers in other Mexican states bordering the Lower Rio Grande Valley, such as Tamaulipas, rely heavily upon the Rio Conchos’ water.

La Boquilla Dam stirs controversy

The Rio Conchos gets its start with rainfall in the Sierra Madre Occidental, a large mountain range system in northwest Mexico. From a high point in the south, the 350-mile river meanders into Toronto Lake — the reservoir formed by La Boquilla Dam, located about 30 miles south of Delicias. Via gravity, water released from the dam irrigates the farmlands of the region. Other flow continues northward, encountering smaller-scale dams until it reaches the Rio Grande at Ojinaga, Mexico — a point on the international border just west of Texas’ Big Bend region.

Farmers in Chihuahua rely on yearly rainfall to continue resupplying La Boquilla Dam and the Rio Conchos’ flow. But demand for water has grown across the region, and precipitation has fallen short. And Mexico fell behind during two consecutive, five-year cycles on its obligations to deliver water to downstream users in the U.S., per the terms of the 1944 agreement.

In September, as Mexico faced a key Oct. 24 deadline to deliver the water, it lagged in deliveries to the U.S. by a significant amount — about 308,000 acre-feet. (An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or enough water to cover roughly the area of a football field with 12 inches of water.) That deficit was nearly 90 percent of what Mexico is obligated to send downstream in a given year.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador supported sending water to the U.S. to comply with treaty obligations. But demonstrators and the state government of Chihuahua opposed the move, contending the deliveries hurt Mexican farmers who are suffering amid a prolonged drought.

Protesters killed, dam seized

Tensions surrounding La Boquilla Dam began building in December 2019. Protests by Mexican farmers intensified in July 2020, as the drought deepened in Chihuahua. Some demonstrators set fire to government offices and blocked railways to protest the government sending water to the U.S.

In early September, clashes erupted between farmers from the Delicias region and the Mexican National Guard over control of La Boquilla Dam. Members of the National Guard shot and killed two protestors, one of whom was a 35-year-old woman. The circumstances surrounding the shootings are murky, and differing accounts have emerged. The leader of the National Guard has claimed the shootings were accidental.

Demonstrators managed to seize control of the dam — to retain the water it holds for local use.

“They’re fighting over La Boquilla because La Boquilla controls which way this water goes,” Heyman said. “It’s true that farmers in the Upper Conchos in Chihuahua are under pressure by the Mexican government to allow water to go downstream because Mexico is trying to fulfill its treaty obligations to the United States. This has been an ongoing problem.”

Mexico has struggled off and on since the late 1980s to meet the treaty requirement.

In mid-September, Texas Governor Greg Abott sent a letter to U.S. officials in charge of the 1944 treaty, complaining about failures by Mexico to deliver enough water for farmers in his state.

‘It’s like not being able to pay a debt’

Lopez, the 74-year-old owner of a pecan orchard near Delicias, hasn’t participated in the protests. But, he says, he supports the farmers who are demonstrating because “in my opinion, the water is for people in Chihuahua.” The region has gotten just 50 to 60 percent of its normal rainfall as of late.

“You can imagine the huge crisis farmers are in now,” he said. “If you look at the water levels in dams, they’re practically dry.”

Lopez said he and fellow farmers do value the 1944 treaty. But their livelihoods and future generations’ heritage are at stake.

“The water is primarily for the people of Chihuahua, and it’s not that we don’t want to cooperate, it’s just that we can’t,” he said. “In a way, it’s like not being able to pay a debt.”

Tensions on the Rio Conchos were also fraught with political intrigue within Mexico. Chihuahua Gov. Javier Corral, who belongs to a rival political party to López Obrador’s, has sided with demonstrators, saying water belongs to Mexican farmers. Some have accused López Obrador of sending water downstream to curry favor with outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump. But López Obrador has accused Corral of trying to shunt the political distress over water shortages López Obrador’s way, in hopes of building Corral’s own political clout in advance of 2021 state elections.

Several appointments to interview Corral for this article were canceled by his office.

A landmark treaty

The 1944 binational water-sharing accord — officially dubbed the Treaty for the Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande — has endured three-quarters of a century and is widely hailed as a success story. Per the terms, Mexico sends water to the U.S. on the Rio Conchos. And the U.S. sends four times as much water to Mexico via a separate river system — the Colorado River, which, flowing south, crosses the international border near Yuma, Arizona.

Two sister agencies, the El Paso-based International Boundary and Water Commission and the Ciudad Juárez-based Comisión Internacional de Límites y Aguas are tasked with administering the 1944 treaty, as well as others connected to the nations’ shared border. The U.S. role in the binational organization is a function of the U.S. Department of State.

There aren’t any specific penalties for either country failing to meet its obligations under the 1944 water agreement. But failing to do so does create political stress between the two. And, at least in theory, egregious violations could cause the treaty to collapse.

Professor Stephen Mumme, a nonresident scholar at Rice University’s Center for the United States and Mexico, is a recognized expert on the 1944 treaty. In a 2019 paper, he describes it as “without a doubt among the two or three most consequential binational agreements made by the two countries.” Not only did its terms serve both U.S. and Mexican interests, but it entailed a great deal of complexity and factored in the necessary flexibility to negotiate the future disputes that were sure to arise.

Each of those factors has helped the treaty last more than 75 years, navigating an array of challenges along the way. Mexico at one point did threaten to withdraw from the treaty over its concerns about U.S. pollution on the Colorado River.

“Still, at no time have Mexico and the U.S. seriously considered revisiting the text of the treaty,” writes Mumme, also a political science professor at Colorado State University. “At the end of the day, and at any given time, most of the treaty’s many and diverse stakeholders have accepted the treaty as on-balance fair and as a core institutional mechanism insuring both security of water supply and flexibility to deal with a range of challenges, anticipated and unanticipated.”

Generally, according to Mumme, water users “basically understand the treaty is a political document that points to negotiated, peaceful settlement of disputes small and large in U.S.-Mexico water relations.” But the agreement does have some weaknesses, including regarding how to share water shortages during drought and manage underground water use on both sides of the border.

Although not official treaty revisions, the agreement allows for both countries to resolve disputes by affirming so-called “minutes.” These are binding decisions that are approved by the joint agencies that administer the treaty.

Surging pecan acreage

Compounding the problems caused by drought are increasing demands for water in northern Mexico. Not only have cities and industry grown, but crop patterns have shifted toward greater water use. In northern Mexico, huge increases in pecan tree acreage have occurred.

In south Texas, shortages of local rainfall prompt farmers to rely more so on Rio Grande water to sustain their fields and citrus orchards, another high water-use crop.

“There are two things that are really stressing us that are really going to cause current and future conflict.” said Heyman, the professor at UTEP. “One of them is that farmers in both countries are growing increasingly thirsty crops, and, in particular, pecan trees. In this region, we know pecan trees use significantly large amounts of water. And the other factor is climate change.”

Pecan trees have proven to be a relatively lucrative crop over the past two decades, as markets for them have burgeoned, especially in China. And, thanks to a rapid increase in tree plantings, Mexico has surged to become the top producer of pecans worldwide. On average, Mexican growers planted 10,500 acres (4,267 hectares) of new pecan acreage every year between 2005 and 2015, according to a presentation by Julio López-Díaz, professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, and Esteban Herrera, professor emeritus at New Mexico State University. Within the country, Chihuahua is the leading state for pecan production — thanks also to sharply boosting its acreage over the past two decades. An average of 6,200 acres (2,532 hectares) of pecan trees were planted in the state each year from 2000 to 2014.

Water from the Rio Conchos is a focal point of much of the state’s pecan production, but some farmers also rely on underground water supplies to sustain their trees.

The huge increases in acreage have translated into greater production. Overall, Mexico produced 270 million pounds of pecans in 2015, according to López-Díaz and Herrera. Some 65 percent of that was from the state of Chihuahua alone. By comparison, the U.S. produced about 254 million pounds the same year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But the water struggles of the past year could prompt a reduction in the crop — at least for growers in Chihuahua. Lopez, who farms the small pecan orchard near Delicias, said the drought stifled his own production. With little water, trees don’t yield pecans.

“Usually I can produce 2 tons of pecans from each acre,” he said. “But this year, I couldn’t even have one single pecan — not even one. I hope this gives you an idea of how bad the situation really is. Thankfully, I don’t depend on my pecan orchards (financially). I receive a pension from the federal government for my past work as an engineer. But, imagine those who actually depend on their orchards to make a living. They’re in a grave crisis right now.”

In the absence of river water, Lopez said many farmers are drilling deep wells and tapping into underground aquifers. The water isn’t ideal because of high concentrations of sulfur, which must be treated, “but at this point we’re fine with any water we can find.”

Hotter conditions expected

Unfortunately, thanks to climate change, the long-term water outlook isn’t rosy for either Colorado, New Mexico and far West Texas, whose farmers and residents rely on the headwaters of the Upper Rio Grande, or for northern Mexico and south Texas, whose water users rely on the headwaters of the Lower Rio Grande.

“The most likely scenario is it’s going to get hotter— maybe not drier— but more water is going to evaporate in the headwaters,” Heyman said.

Even if average precipitation continues to fall, hotter temperatures mean more of that rain or snow in the high mountain ranges will be used up through evaporation or soaked up vegetation before having a chance to reach tributaries, like the Rio Conchos, and in turn the main channel of the Rio Grande. The net effect is less water for farmers, industrials users and cities.

The Rio Conchos is a major contributor of the water shared between the U.S. and Mexico via the 1944 treaty, but it’s not the only source. Other smaller inflows to the Lower Rio Grande from Mexico that are also divided between both countries— two-thirds for Mexico and one-third for the U.S.— include the San Diego, San Rodrigo, Escondido, and Salado Rivers, as well as the Las Vacas Arroyo.

More than 100 miles northeast of Delicias, as the crow flies, is the point where the Rio Conchos joins the Rio Grande. Some 200 miles due east of there lies the first of two large-scale reservoirs— Amistad International Reservoir— used to store water in the Lower Rio Grande. Yet another 200 miles to the southeast stands a second dam and storage system called Falcon International Reservoir. Both are used to keep water on behalf of the U.S. and Mexico for water for their respective uses in the Lower Rio Grande, stretching all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

A 2013 study by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation examined the likely future impacts of climate change and other factors on the future water supply for U.S. farmers, cities and industrial users in the Lower Rio Grande. Key conclusions are that hotter temperatures and less rainfall are expected over the next four decades. And demand is likely to increase from population growth in south Texas.

Indeed, this likely warmer, drier future may already have arrived.

“This is something we need to wake up and deal with,” Heyman said.

South Texas farmers along the Rio Grande faced a dearth of rainfall in 2020. In mid-December, weather officials labeled several counties’ drought status as severe or extreme.

“This area is experiencing a drought,” said Sonia Lambert, general manager of the Cameron County Irrigation District No. 2 in south Texas. “We’re expecting drier conditions this spring and summer.”

With less local rainfall, water from the Rio Grande that’s stored in the Amistad and Falcon reservoirs becomes more important to farmers downstream. (The Lower Rio Grande doesn’t rely much on underground water, which tends to be brackish.) Cities on both sides of the border also rely on the reservoir storage for their drinking water supplies.

Mexico transfers water ownership to U.S.

A silver lining for south Texans is that Mexico did resolve its water debt to the U.S.

With just three days remaining before the Oct. 24 deadline, commissioners from the joint agencies signed Minute No. 325, which resolved the international water debt. Mexico transferred water it owned in the Amistad and Falcon reservoirs to the U.S. via an accounting move. Leading up to the signing, the nation already had paid down some of its debt using water from the six Mexican tributaries to the Rio Grande that are outlined in the 1944 treaty. That included water from Luis L. Leon Dam — a dam farther downstream on the Rio Conchos from La Boquilla.

Lambert, who’s served as general manager for the south Texas irrigation district for about 22 years, will have a clearer picture of this district’s upcoming water season in the next few weeks. She said Mexico having provided the treaty water “did help, but our outlook is dim.”

“We’d hope it would be a lot better,” she said. “There will be (irrigation) districts that experience shortages.”

Nearly 80 percent of the watershed that feeds the Lower Rio Grande is located in Mexico, according to the 2013 Bureau of Reclamation study. But that future water supply is in question due to a “growing gap between demand and availability” and “the potential for diminishing supplies due to climate change and competing use from Mexico.”

Ideally, Lambert said, Mexico would send its required amount of treaty water to the U.S. evenly throughout each five-year cycle. But it seems the country often waits until the last minute in hopes that a bumper rainfall will fill Amistad and Falcon reservoirs — an occurrence that resets the clock to start a new five-year cycle. (For instance, a new five-year cycle just began in late 2020. If in two years, the dams fill to a certain capacity, the five-year cycle and its associated requirement for Mexico to deliver water to the U.S. will start again.) But when that rainfall doesn’t materialize, Mexico struggles to provide the water by the mandated deadline.

“We feel in order for them to be able to comply, they have to do it within that five years and not wait until the last few months,” she said. “Because then it becomes physically impossible to release enough water to meet the terms.”

Looking to the future

As a new decade dawns, water managers and politicians in both countries face the monumental task of seeking solutions to the many problems plaguing the Lower Rio Grande Basin.

Over-allocation of water rights in both the U.S. and Mexico (meaning more use is permitted than supply exists), inefficient water delivery infrastructure in Mexico, and a lack of sharing of accurate water data between the two nations are among the challenges that persist, Mumme writes in a recent paper. There is a need for conservation measures like ones practiced on the Colorado River, and there’s a need to address heightened groundwater use within the Lower Rio Grande Basin.

And the likely warmer conditions brought by climate change can’t be ignored. To adapt, Heyman said, there are ways to increase water supply, but “those sources are going to cost a lot of money.”

“And who’s going to pay for them?”

Desalination of both groundwater and ocean water is one of the proposed ideas for the Lower Rio Grande. The technology exists, but it adds an additional cost to supplying water.

Heyman said it is often less expensive to conserve the water already in existence and find ways to use it more efficiently. Now, he said, farmers — who use the bulk of the water in the basin compared to other users, such as cities — don’t have a lot of incentive to move towards more efficient irrigation practices. A shift toward lower water-use crops, such as pomegranates, may be in order. These changes will take a lot of financial investment. But without them, conflicts are likely to continue.

“We’re using more water in what is a hotter, drier situation,” he said. “One of the byproducts of this is tensions between water users of all kinds.”

The IBWC appears to be turning its attention more seriously toward problem solving. The newly signed Minute No. 325 “establishes work groups to analyze and develop water management tools to provide for increased reliability and predictability in Rio Grande water deliveries to users in the United States and Mexico,” according to a news release from the organization. The groups have three years to make headway on some of the key problems.

Asked about possible solutions to the water dilemma, Lopez, who farms near Delicias, suggested putting limits on huge farming operations that cover several thousands of acres. Prayer should also play a role, along with more awareness of the limitations of nature.

“We need to all remember that as humans, we have rights to use our natural resources peacefully,” he said. “If anybody wants to lay claim to something that isn’t theirs, it’s going to cause a conflict. There is a natural equilibrium that exists in nature; the border is a farming border and we all want the water, but we’re all too ambitious and are disrupting this equilibrium, instead of respecting it.”

-With contributing reporting contributions from Dolores M. Bernal