More water coming to south Texas from Mexico after post-election deal

(The Center Square) – Two days after President-elect Donald Trump was elected, a commission overseeing water rights between the U.S. and Mexico announced more water would be coming to south Texas. The decision was also reached after Congress passed a bill to withhold federal aid to Mexico unless Texas received water it was owed through a 1944-era treaty.

On Nov. 7, the International Boundary and Water Commission announced U.S. and Mexican authorities signed an agreement in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to ensure Mexico made regular water deliveries to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

It came eight months after Texas sugar growers in the Rio Grande Valley said they had no choice but to shut down the last remaining sugar operation in Texas because the federal government hadn’t held Mexico accountable for breaking a 1944-era treaty, The Center Square reported.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers for years called on the Biden administration, and previous administrations, to force Mexico’s hands, the industry argues, to no avail.

The Rio Grande Valley is among the most fertile agricultural regions in the state and country. In order to grow a wide range of crops, farmers rely on water from the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers. To manage water usage and conservation efforts, Mexico and the U.S. entered into a 1944 Treaty of Utilization of Waters. Over the past 25 years, the State Department hasn’t prioritized American agricultural producers in South Texas, the sugar growers, the agricultural industry and Republican and Democratic lawmakers argue, which led to water shortages in the valley.

The agreement, IBWC’s Minute No. 331, “Measures to Improve the Reliability and Predictability of Rio Grande Water Deliveries to Benefit the United States and Mexico,” claims to provide Mexico with tools to reduce or prevent water delivery shortfalls to the U.S.

“The U.S. Government is already consulting with Mexico to ensure the earliest possible use of the Minute to deliver water to the United States during the current rainy season,” the IBWC said.

“The last thirty years of managing over-stretched water resources in the Rio Grande basin have produced broad agreement that the status quo was not acceptable,” U.S. IBWC Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner said. “With the signing of this Minute, Mexico has tools for more regular water deliveries that can be applied right away. Our work will continue to bring predictability and reliability to water deliveries.”

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar also noted the agreement was “historic” and reflected a joint commitment to responsibly and sustainably manage water resources.

The 1944 U.S.-Mexico water treaty stipulates that Mexico must deliver water to the lower Rio Grande Valley in five-year cycles at a minimum annual average of 350,000 acre-feet of water “except in the event of extraordinary drought or serious accident to its water infrastructure.”

During the current cycle, which began Oct. 25, 2020, Mexico delivered 425,405 acre-feet of water. Its obligation under the treaty is to deliver 1.75 million acre-feet of water by Oct. 24, 2025, “absent extraordinary drought or a serious infrastructure accident.”

The new agreement includes pilot provisions related to water deliveries, with a duration of five years; establishes a Rio Grande Environment Work Group to address environmental conservation issues; formalizes the Lower Rio Grande Water Quality Initiative to address water quality concerns, especially salinity; and includes some provisions with no expiration date and others that will sunset in five years unless otherwise amended.

The agreement was reached after the U.S. House Appropriations Committee and the U.S. House, in June, passed an appropriations bill that included a stipulation made by a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers to withhold U.S. foreign aid to Mexico until it released the required amount of water. Mexico receives hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assistance.

The request was made by Republican U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, among others, to include the funding stipulation in the fiscal 2025 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bill.

De La Cruz recently introduced bills to address the issue, including the Water Delivery Transparency Act, requiring IBWC transparency, and the South Texas Emergency Assistance Act, authorizing federal financial assistance to south Texas agricultural producers who suffered losses from Mexico’s failure to deliver water.

“South Texas’s farmers and communities have been carrying the weight of these water shortages for too long,” De La Cruz said. “It’s time for a new approach that prioritizes transparency, stakeholder engagement, and accountability from our neighbors to the south.”

In June, the combined U.S. water storage held in the Lake Amistad and Falcon Dam international reservoirs was at 18.76%, the lowest volume on record, according to IBWC data.