Paddlers, fishers and farmers have been enjoying a three-week artificial boost in the Rio Grande, thanks to a treaty payment from the government of Mexico. In December, President Claudia Sheinbaum reiterated her commitment to the 1944 treaty between the two governments that regulates water in the Colorado and Rio Grande river basins. “In recent weeks, both countries have worked intensively and in coordination to establish a technical roadmap that improves management of the current cycle and addresses the deficit from the previous cycle,” she explained.
The treaty requires the government of Mexico to deliver a third of its water surplus from the six major tributaries of the Rio Grande in five-year cycles. That equates to around 350,000 acre-feet of water per year for a total of 1.75 million acre feet. (An acre-foot is a measurement used in water management equivalent to a football field submerged in a foot of water.)
The treaty has become a touchy political subject in both Mexico and the United States. Politicians on the American right—like Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas—see Mexico’s withholding of water as a direct attack on American agriculture. “Mexico has consistently failed to meet its obligations under the 1944 Water Treaty, cycle after cycle,” Sen. Cruz wrote in a press release. “The Mexican government exploits the structure of the treaty to defer and delay its deliveries in each individual year until it becomes impossible for it to meet its overall obligations, and it continues to fail to meet its obligation to deliver water to the United States under the 1944 Water Treaty.”
Widespread drought conditions and booming agriculture in the Rio Grande basin over the past few decades have had serious impacts on the river. The nonprofit American Rivers estimates that less than a fifth of the river’s water reaches the Gulf of Mexico and gave it the dubious honor of the fifth most endangered river in the United States.
President Sheinbaum pushed back against the narrative that her country was withholding water on purpose. “The Government of Mexico emphasizes that it has not violated any of its provisions,” the secretary of foreign affairs wrote in a press release. “During a period marked by an extraordinary and unprecedented drought that has affected users in both countries, Mexico has made additional deliveries, always in accordance with the Treaty, water availability, and the operational and infrastructure limitations of the region, without affecting water for human consumption and agricultural production at the border.”
Sixty-five of the 260 billion gallons of outstanding water debt were released from the Luis Leon dam over the second half of December, with water levels in the Big Bend region seeing a slight boost from around December 23 to January 12. Plans for the next release have not yet been announced.