It is hard to imagine draining a river that once flowed as mightily as the Rio Grande. Before the early 1990s, rains provided enough water for Mexico to meet its treaty obligation. With the drought, the river has become a long lake, ending in a sandbar where it once flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. In a war over water, the worst thing is to be downstream. The next worst thing is to be politically unimportant. The farmers of southeast Texas are both–which explains why they must make do with 40 percent less water than they use in a normal year.
That is a sharp contrast to the Mexican state of Chihuahua, 1,000 miles upstream. With two dams, Chihuahua controls the flow of the Rio Conchos, the most important feeder river of the Rio Grande. There, officials claim that the drought has simply made it impossible to comply with the treaty. But it’s not so simple, according to a pair of recent studies. One suggests that instead of releasing the water into the river, Chihuahua has been maintaining normal levels of irrigation inside its borders; proof is a series of satellite images collected by the University of Texas, showing wide swaths of green in the Rio Conchos basin. The second study concludes that not only has Chihuahua increased agricultural production over the past several years, but it has switched to thirstier crops such as pecans and alfalfa. Mexican officials dispute the findings. “The dams are at their lowest levels in 30 or 40 years,” says Jose Luis Garcia Mayagoitia, the Chihuahua state secretary of agriculture. “We can’t deliver water we don’t have.”
On both sides of the border, the debate boils down to competition between local and national interests. Congressional elections are scheduled for next year, and Mexican President Vicente Fox can’t afford to divert scarce water to the gringos, especially when the Chihuahua governor is Patricio Martinez, a member of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party with a populist streak and higher political aspirations. George W. Bush has repeatedly urged Fox to open the dams. But he will not push too hard. Texas may be the U.S. president’s home state, but as local farmers see it, he won’t sour his relationship with Mexico to save four already poor Democratic counties. “We are the sacrificial lamb for good relations with Mexico,” says Leonard Simmons, a 50-year-old farmer.
The pain adds up. Farmers pray for thunderstorms, even hurricanes. Irrigation water is now rationed among farmers. Because it is allocated based on acreage, many farmers have left large swaths bare, devoting the water to the survival of sugar cane and citrus trees–crops that require long-term investment. Murden, a 39-year-old, fourth-generation farmer, looks across one of his sand-swept fields. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” he says. According to a study by John Robinson, a Texas A&M economist, the water not delivered by Mexico has cost the region 30,000 jobs and nearly $1 billion.
Anger is building. Under the 1944 treaty, the United States sends 1.5 million acre-feet of water a year into Mexico down the Colorado River. “Close the gate on the Colorado, and the treaty will be honored,” one farmer said at a congressional hearing this month. Congressman Solomon Ortiz suggested trade sanctions against Chihuahua. Since President Bush is unlikely to endorse such a plan, Texas, the state of bigness, may find itself relying on conservation. It may also have to find more equitable ways to share its water. The border is divided into water districts; the few that have a small surplus sell at monstrous prices.
Murden descends from the air-conditioned respite of his pickup and ambles into the Longhorn, a local barbecue restaurant with neon beer signs and steer heads on the walls, to meet his water-district manager. Word is that a neighboring district has water to sell. With a phone call the deal is done. Murden doesn’t flinch at the fact that he just spent more than $16,000 for 165 acre-feet of water. “I’ve never paid that much for water before,” he says. “But I’m glad to have it.”
