Ciudad Juarez.- While in Texas complaints persist over Mexico’s delay in paying for water from the Rio Grande under the 1944 Treaty, indicators from the International Boundary and Water Commission (CILA) show that the country has delivered only 508.4 million cubic meters (Mm3) since October 2020 and until September 17, or 23.5 percent of the 2,158 Mm3 established in the binational agreement.
The amount also represents an increase of just over one percentage point, or 37.6 Mm3, compared to what had been contributed until March 14, when 470.8 Mm3 were reported, or 22 percent of the obligation whose five-year cycle ends in October 2025. Official information adds that, of the total paid this year, 358.9 Mm3, or 70 percent, have come from the Conchos, the main river in Chihuahua. CILA data also show that this year’s volume is the lowest in recent decades; a delay that agency personnel have indicated may still drag on into the next five-year period – with the justification of the drought – but with a load that could be “unmanageable” since it corresponds to almost 10 years. In addition, the approval of a document negotiated days before the end of the last cycle with the purpose of having mechanisms that would improve the “reliability and predictability” of Mexico’s deliveries and that, according to what was agreed since October 2020, should be ready before the end of 2023, is still stalled in the binational Commission. “There is no progress,” said Manuel Morales, technical secretary of the Mexican Section of the CILA, yesterday regarding the document. According to the journalistic archive, the cancellation of said document was managed by the government of Tamaulipas with the argument that it intended to give water to the neighboring country outside of what is established by the Treaty, which was denied by CILA – an organization whose Mexican representation is based in Ciudad Juárez. “There has been a misinterpretation, the scope of this act is not being understood, the nature and it is as if they do not have the background that this comes from a previous act, it seems that it occurred to us at this moment and that we are generating it from nothing, when it is part of a process of compliance with Mexico’s obligations,” said Jesús Luévano, former technical secretary of the Mexican Section, in February. In Texas, meanwhile, various congressmen have claimed the delay, such as Republican representative Monica De la Cruz, who wrote in July to the Mexican president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, requesting a meeting to address this debt. Together with other legislators, such as the also Republican senator Ted Cruz, De la Cruz signed a letter in May urging the authorities of that power to “withhold funds” assigned to Mexico until this country complies with its obligations “to resolve the current dispute over water.” And on August 27, according to the Texas Farm Bureau, farmers “and ranchers told U.S. Sen. John Cornyn that Congress must act now on the Rio Grande Valley water crisis before the situation becomes even more dire.”
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