Mexico’s water wars have turned deadly.
A long-simmering dispute about shared water rights between Mexico and the United States has erupted into open clashes pitting Mexican National Guard troops against farmers, ranchers and others who seized a dam in northern Chihuahua state.
Farmers once again clashed with Mexican military forces Sunday to protest releases of water from a dam to repay a water debt owed to the United States.
Mexico is at risk of breaching a 75-year old water treaty with the US if it does not come up with a new strategy to deliver 457,800 acre-feet (565 million cubic meters – Mm3) of water to its northern neighbor by October 24.
That amount represents 350,000 acre-feet of water that the Latin American country is expected to deliver annually under the US-Mexico water treaty of 1944, in addition to making up for the delayed delivery of around 108,000 acre-feet that it has postponed during the 2015-20 cycle.
In January, President Trump signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) into law, replacing the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The new trade pact is set to go into full effect July 1. Thanks to House Democrats from Southern California, the legislative act governing its implementation in the United States will provide $300 million for infrastructure to stop the chronic flow of sewage across the international border from Tijuana, Mexico — an ecological peril highlighted on a recent episode of “60 Minutes.”
The Colorado River Basin is the setting for some of the most drawn-out and complex water issues in the Western U.S. In 2019, the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan — a water-conservation agreement between states, tribal nations and the federal government for the basin, now in its 20th year of drought — passed Congress. This year, it goes into effect.
San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico — Under the red girders of a nondescript toll bridge, waves gently lapped coarse sands in a gritty corner of this northwestern Mexican border city.
“There is usually no water and vegetation, and the ground looks like this,” local conservationist Alejandra Calvo-Fonesca said, gesturing toward the dusty shoreline of the Colorado River.
For a few months this winter, residents welcomed an unexpected surge of water in the river – a phenomenon they had not experienced since the spring 2014 “pulse flow,” when the United States released 107,000 acre-feet of water into the Colorado River Delta over a two-month period. That seminal event brought revelers in droves, eager to celebrate the revival of a historic waterway that is not only the city’s namesake, but a source of pride for its people.
We all know what rolls downhill and smells bad. Nowhere is it more true than in the Tijuana River Valley in southern San Diego County, where for years toxic cross-border sewage spills have created the biggest ongoing water pollution and environmental justice crisis in the United States. While some progress has been made in recent negotiations with Mexico to fund solutions, it could take years to realize significant improvements.
Mexico is one of a growing list of countries deemed most at risk of hitting “Day Zero” when they no longer have enough water to meet citizen needs, according to a new report by global research organization, World Resources Institute (WRI). The nonprofit institute categorized countries into five different levels according to their relative risk of consuming all of their water resources, ranging from “Low Baseline Water Stress” to “Extremely High Baseline Water Stress.” Mexico is one of 44 countries – representing one-third of the world’s population – that fall into the second-highest category, “High Baseline Water Stress,” meaning that the nation consumes between 40 and 80 percent of the water supply available in a year.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
