The United States and Mexico appear destined for a new border dispute, this time over water. More precisely, lack of water. Since 1944, there has been an agreement between both countries to share the use of the transboundary basins of the Colorado and Bravo rivers. The problem is that when that agreement was closed 80 years ago, its authors took neither the surge in demand nor the persistent droughts that have plagued the region into the 21st century into account.

As a result, the 1944 commitments became an unmanageable ticking time bomb that both countries were grappling with.

A little history. To understand the situation that exists today on the border between the United States and Mexico, we need to go back to the first half of the 20th century, when both countries signed agreements to share the waters of three cross-border rivers: Bravo – known as the Grande in the United States, Colorado and In Tijuana. The first agreement was dated 1906. Second, the 1944 International Water Agreement, in which commitments from both sides were acknowledged: Mexico would give up a certain amount of water from Bravo, and the United States would do the same from Bravo. Colorado.

Summary of the 1944 Treaty published by the Mexican Government.

go into details. The detailed text is slightly more complex and can be found on the Mexican Government website. While the United States undertakes to send 1.5 million acre-feet of water from Colorado every year, Mexico sends 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Grande to the United States every five years. For reference, one acre is the liquid that should be spread over one acre of water one foot deep. More graphically, Washington Post This, he explains, is the amount of water that two or three average homes consume in a year.

The 1944 agreement determining the allocation of waters of the Colorado and Bravo rivers from Fort Quitman in Texas to the Gulf of Mexico calls for five-year cycles for a very simple reason: the river’s unpredictability. The idea was that if there were deficit periods, they could be covered by periods of surplus.

“Some things have changed”. This peculiar cross-border arrangement worked for a while in the early years, but revealed its weaknesses by the end of the 20th century. As María Elena Giner of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) explained to CNN, “something has changed.” Mexico has closed several five-year periods with deficits in a relatively short period of time. More washington post points out that the country has regularly fallen short since 1997.

One of the key points may be that the 1944 international agreement was based on water availability and drought forecasts in force at the time, without taking into account the current scenario. That same week, Álvaro Iván Bustillos of the Chihuahua Regional Livestock Association in Mexico Reporter It is stated that the sector is struggling with the worst drought crisis in the last 35 years.

memory of 2020. We don’t have to go back very far to find the tensions between Mexico and the United States over water. In the summer of 2020, as the five-year cycle was about to end, Mexico was already at risk of not meeting its quota. At the time, the situation was so complicated that authorities even considered using the Boquilla dam reserve, sparking outrage among farmers. Even one death was recorded during the height of the protests.

Four years later… The scenario is not much different, as CNN explained in a comprehensive report a few days ago in which it explained that Mexico is falling behind in terms of supply due to the drought and high temperatures that hit the country. The current cycle will not close until October 2025, but the scenario does not invite optimism, especially given the prospect of a hot summer. “We only had water for one year and we are in the fourth year,” warns Giner.

The current scenario is explained by the high temperatures and drought that accompany global warming, as well as the increasing demand for water as reservoirs have been built and developed around the river since the signing of the 1944 agreement. Large and growing population.

As if the situation wasn’t complicated in itself, University of Michigan researcher Vianey Rueda recalls that the last 80 years have wreaked havoc on the system that was agreed upon at the time: “We have a stable climate, but now they’re trying to apply it to an unstable climate.”

Unrest in the USA. The situation in northern Mexico is complex. But water shortages are also occurring in the southern United States, more specifically in Texas, and the effects are being transferred to farms. “American agriculture, and Texas agriculture in particular, is being deprived of the water it needs to grow crops and make a living,” Republican senator John Cornyn of Texas recently lamented. “We’re trying to get the attention of the Mexican government.”

Since 2020, Mexico has delivered a third of what was stipulated in the agreement, according to data considered by CW39, which cites the International Boundary and Water Commission. “For many farmers, this is a matter of life and death.”

The most affected region is the Rio Grande Valley, and there are even those who say that water problems may lead to an increase in food prices. CNN goes further, noting that there are border reservoirs supplying homes and farms at historic lows: Amistad will be at less than 26% and Falcon will be at 9.9%. The drought would also cause the closure of a sugar mill in Texas, affecting approximately 500 employees.

What’s the solution? A month ago Washington Post He has already warned that the diplomatic dispute between Mexico and the United States is deepening, and there are already voices in Texas demanding that Mexico provide water or cuts in U.S. aid. At the epicenter of the crisis is the 1944 agreement, the drought, and its impact on the upper reaches of the Rio Grande. After all, there are two factors that are difficult to control: increasing demand since the 1940s and rains.

While a powerful storm feeding Mexican rivers is one possible solution to alleviate the current problem, experts warn it would be a short-term solution to a complex problem. Another possibility is to rethink the agreement or implement changes. In 2020, López Obrador claimed that the 1944 agreement was “one of the best agreements ever achieved in history regarding the United States.” In any case, Giner assumes that, at least in the short term, “there’s nothing we can do” without available water.

Rueda goes further and argues that CNN should stop viewing distribution as a zero-sum game where one side’s loss leads to another’s win. “Then you start eliminating the zero-sum game, you start saying we’re both actually losing. Nobody’s actually winning.”

Image | Daxis (Flickr)

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