Mexico Owes Water to US Amid Major Drought
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Social
Mexico Owes the U.S. 380,000 Acre-feet of Water, Equivalent tothe Amount Consumedby1.5 million Texans Over the Course of a Year
Nearly 70 years later, engineer Roberto Enriquez de la Garza stood on the lip of the Amistad Dam — vultures circling overhead, grassy islands poking out of the depleted reservoir below — and explained why Mexico can't hold up its side of the bargain.
"The U.S. gets angry: Why aren't you giving us water? Well, how can we when there is no water?" he asked. "I can't do anything. It's not raining."
The historic drought across the western United States that hasdrained the water tablein California and devastatedrivers and reservoirsin Arizona has intensified a diplomatic dispute here along the Texas border. Under the terms of the treaty, the United States is obliged to give Mexico water from the Colorado River, while Mexico must transfer water from the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
But in recent years, Mexico has fallen behind on its obligation. The accounting for the water sharing is tallied in five-year cycles. And at this point, in the fourth year of the present cycle, Mexico owes the United States 380,000 acre-feet of water, more than all the water consumed in a year by the 1.5million residents of the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
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