The Mexican Water Treaty of 1944 committed the U.S. to deliver
1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico on an annual basis, plus
an additional 200,000 acre-feet under surplus conditions. The
treaty is overseen by the International Boundary and Water
Commission.
Colorado River water is delivered to Mexico at Morelos Dam,
located 1.1 miles downstream from where the California-Baja
California land boundary intersects the river. The river’s
natural terminus is the Gulf of California in Mexico, but because
of the dams and diversion facilities throughout the Colorado
River Basin, natural flow rarely reaches the Gulf. Water diverted
at Morelos Dam is primarily used to irrigate Mexicali Valley
farmland, and also supplies the cities of Mexicali, Tecate and
Tijuana.
Hours after President Donald Trump threatened Mexico with
additional tariffs over a massive water debt, that country’s
president publicly vowed to make a substantial payment soon.
Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico must send 1.75 million acre-feet of
water to the U.S. from the Rio Grande every five years, and the
United States is to pay Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet of water
annually via the Colorado River out West. The
current five-year cycle ends in October and Mexico, so far, has
paid only 512,604 acre-feet of water to the United States —
about one-third of what it owes — according to the latest IBWC
data published Friday. … On Friday morning, Mexican President
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo said her country doesn’t have enough
water to give to the United States but will make payments.
San Diego officials say Mexico is continuing to release
millions of gallons per day of raw sewage into the city’s
waters despite its promises to end the flow that has sickened
Navy SEALs and San Diego residents. “Mexico just dumped 6
million gallons of sewage into the Tijuana River — after
promising they wouldn’t,” said San Diego County Supervisor Jim
Desmond on X today (Apr. 11). “We are at the mercy of a foreign
government that continues to pollute our waters — while we get
stuck with the consequences.” Desmond also said Navy SEAL
training is often being shifted farther north in San Diego from
Coronado, where the training typically takes place, due to the
high volume of waterborne illness caused by fecal and bacterial
contamination.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened Mexico with
sanctions and tariffs in a dispute over water sharing between
the two countries, accusing Mexico of breaking an 81-year-old
treaty and “stealing the water from Texas Farmers.” Under the
1944 treaty, Mexico must send 1.75 million acre-feet of water
to the U.S. from the Rio Grande through a network of
interconnected dams and reservoirs every five years.
… The treaty also requires that the U.S. deliver 1.5
million acre-feet of water annually to Mexico from the
Colorado River, an obligation that the U.S.
has largely fulfilled, although recent deliveries have been
reduced due to severe drought, something the 1944 accord allows
for. While Mexico sends far less water to the U.S., it has
struggled to fulfill its end of the bargain due to a
combination of factors including droughts, poor infrastructure
and growing local demand.
Mexico is diverting untreated wastewater into the Tijuana River
as it works to repair its faulty sewage infrastructure. About
five million gallons per day (MGD) have been diverted since
April 8 as Mexico repairs a critical junction box that is a
part of its International Collector project. The junction box
must be dried so it can be rebuilt with reinforced concrete. On
Wednesday, Mexico shut off the water supply to a portion of
Tijuana for other projects, which eliminated the need to divert
wastewater into the Tijuana River. Because of that, the average
daily impact has been three million gallons per day, according
to Maria-Elena Giner, commissioner for the U.S. section of the
International Boundary and Water Commission. To help remove as
much wastewater as possible from the river, Mexico is working
to activate its PBCILA lift station, which is usually turned
off during the dry season. It is expected to be operational by
Sunday.
It’s going to take an act of God or some savvy last-minute
negotiating for Mexico to liquidate its enormous water debt
with the United States by October 24. A new minute to the 1944
binational water treatment was signed late last year and
American officials particularly in Texas have been pressing for
Mexico to catch up on late – very late – water deliveries to
the Rio Grande. … But the fact remains that northern Mexico is
experiencing a prolonged drought and reservoirs on both sides
of the border are running low, a Mexican official familiar with
the issue told Border Report. … The 1944 treaty requires the
U.S. to deliver water to Mexico from the Colorado
River and Mexico to apportion the water from six Rio
Grande tributaries from Chihuahua to Tamaulipas.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed during her
morning press conference that the long-awaited desalination
plant in Playas de Rosarito is moving forward as part of the
National Hydric Plan. “Yes, we’re building it… The
desalination plant in Baja California is happening,” Sheinbaum
declared. The news was met with enthusiasm at the local level.
Rocío Adame, Mayor of Rosarito, quickly took to social media to
celebrate the announcement, emphasizing the project’s
importance for the region. “The Rosarito desalination plant is
now a certainty! President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed it’s on.
This construction is essential for improving water supply in
southern Rosarito and preserving our beaches,” Adame wrote.
A handful of residents who live near the Tijuana River Valley
protested the smell of sewage coming from the river (on
Sunday). … Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre is
protesting, too. She said she hears residents’ concerns about
what needs to be done, and said the Trump administration and
Governor Newsom need to help solve the problem. ”We’re
hearing people who have COPD and chronic pneumonia and sinus
situs and migraines,” saids Aguirre. “These are all consistent
with exposure to all of these pollutants. What’s it going to
take? We need our federal government to come down here, do a
tour of the area, declare a state of emergency, and divert and
treat the river.”
The United States has refused a request by Mexico for water,
alleging shortfalls in sharing by its southern neighbor, as
Donald Trump ramps up a battle on another front. The state
department said on Thursday it was the first time that the
United States had rejected a request by Mexico for special
delivery of water, which would have gone to the border city of
Tijuana. … The 1944 treaty, which governs water allocation from
the Rio Grande and Colorado River, has come under growing
strain in recent years due to the pressures of the climate
crisis and the burgeoning populations and agriculture in
parched areas. … Under the treaty, Mexico sends water from
rivers in the Rio Grande basin to the US, which in turn sends
Mexico water from the Colorado River, further to the west. But
Mexico has fallen behind in its water payments due to drought
conditions in the arid north of the country.
Mexico will invest $6.1bn on 17 water projects in regions hit
by drought and flooding over the next six years, news website
Aquínoticias reports. The country is increasingly prone to
drought partly as a result of climate change and partly through
rapid urbanisation, which are draining aquifers. The work will
help 36 million people, said Efraín Morales López, director
general of Conagua, which manages Mexico’s water
infrastructure. He said $750m would be spent in the coming
year, and would fund site preparation for a desalination plant,
aqueducts and flood protection. The plant will be built in
Rosarito, Baja California, with a six-year investment of around
$600m. It will provide water to the Tijuana area, benefiting 6
million residents. Work will begin in November.
The first time I went to Imperial Beach, California, I was
struck by the community’s kindness. I went to the pier first,
not knowing where to find people to talk to, only knowing that
the pier was an iconic fixture of the town. … At first,
the story was about the loss of this beach, a community space
to swim and gather. But as I spoke to more people, and felt how
genuine they were and ready to talk to me and direct me to
where to go next, it was almost overwhelming how far the
impacts of the polluted water in Imperial Beach reached.
A settlement could be on the horizon in the long-running legal
battle over the waters of the Rio Grande nearly a year after
the Supreme Court rejected a previous deal, according to new
court documents. The states engaged in Texas v. New Mexico and
Colorado and the federal government revealed their progress
during a status hearing late last month before federal Judge D.
Brooks Smith. “The parties expressed optimism that they had
identified a path toward settlement,” wrote Smith, a George W.
Bush appointee. “They explained, however, that more work needed
to be done, especially with regard to aspects of any potential
agreement which will require input and advice from technical
experts.”
A desalination plant in Baja California. A large-scale water
storage project in the Mexico City metropolitan area. A flood
prevention initiative in Tabasco. A new system of reservoirs in
Sonora. All these water infrastructure projects — and more than
a dozen more — are slated to be built in the coming years
in Mexico, a country where water scarcity is a major
concern. National Water Commission (Conagua) General
Director Efraín Morales said Wednesday at President Claudia
Sheinbaum’s morning press conference that federal and state
authorities will invest more than 120 billion pesos in
strategic water infrastructure projects between 2025 and 2030.
With a major storm approaching the Tijuana-San Diego region
this week, employees at a sod farm in the Tijuana River Valley
dismissed the possibility of any flooding now that an earthen
levee has been repaired. That same berm, which snakes along the
north bank of the Tijuana River, gave way nearly 14 months ago
leading to catastrophic flooding at the grass-growing
operation. … The International Boundary and Water
Commission, which oversees the land, took months to remove 650
tons of waste materials from the site. But repairing the
berm was the responsibility of West Coast Turf, the company
that leases the land from IBWC to grow sod. Workers spent
weeks filling in two gaping openings in the levee; their work
was finished earlier this month.
Millions of gallons of raw sewage spilled from a construction
site in Tijuana and found its way into San Diego County early
Sunday. The spill came after a few days of rain already flushed
the polluted Tijuana River Valley. … The international
collector is a new pipeline meant to deliver raw sewage to
wastewater treatment plants in the U.S. and Mexico. Tijuana
crews are currently installing a bypass to prevent sewage from
escaping while the new collector is put online. An IBWC
spokesman confirmed something happened early Sunday morning but
could not elaborate.
Veolia Water North America-West, the federal government’s
contractor tasked with maintaining its wastewater treatment
plant at the U.S.-Mexico border, is the subject of a new
lawsuit alleging failure to contain crossborder sewage. On
Monday, the Coronado Unified School District sued the plant
operator and its former manager, Mark Wippler, marking the
first time a school district joins local municipalities,
environmental groups and homeowners that are suing and
previously sued the international engineering company and
federal government. San Diego-based Frantz Law Group, which
opened a mass tort case late last year over similar claims, is
representing the school district. It’s unclear whether other
South County school districts may join or follow suit.
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
Water is flowing once again
to the Colorado River’s delta in Mexico, a vast region that
was once a natural splendor before the iconic Western river was
dammed and diverted at the turn of the last century, essentially
turning the delta into a desert.
In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be intentionally sent
down the river to inundate the delta floodplain and regenerate
native cottonwood and willow trees, even in an overallocated
river system. Ultimately, dedicated flows of river water were
brokered under cooperative
efforts by the U.S. and Mexican governments.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
Nowhere is the domino effect in
Western water policy played out more than on the Colorado River,
and specifically when it involves the Lower Basin states of
California, Nevada and Arizona. We are seeing that play out now
as the three states strive to forge a Drought Contingency Plan.
Yet that plan can’t be finalized until Arizona finds a unifying
voice between its major water players, an effort you can read
more about in the latest in-depth article of Western Water.
Even then, there are some issues to resolve just within
California.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
The Colorado River Delta once spanned nearly 2 million acres and
stretched from the northern tip of the Gulf of California in
Mexico to Southern California’s Salton Sea. Today it’s one-tenth
that size, yet still an important estuary, wildlife habitat and
farming region even though Colorado River flows rarely reach the
sea.
This issue of Western Water examines the ongoing effort
between the United States and Mexico to develop a
new agreement to the 1944 Treaty that will continue the
binational cooperation on constructing Colorado River
infrastructure, storing water in Lake Mead and providing instream
flows for the Colorado River Delta.
As vital as the Colorado River is to the United States and
Mexico, so is the ongoing process by which the two countries
develop unique agreements to better manage the river and balance
future competing needs.
The prospect is challenging. The river is over allocated as urban
areas and farmers seek to stretch every drop of their respective
supplies. Since a historic treaty between the two countries was
signed in 1944, the United States and Mexico have periodically
added a series of arrangements to the treaty called minutes that
aim to strengthen the binational ties while addressing important
water supply, water quality and environmental concerns.
California’s little-known New River has been called one of North
America’s most polluted. A closer look reveals the New River is
full of ironic twists: its pollution has long defied cleanup, yet
even in its degraded condition, the river is important to the
border economies of Mexicali and the Imperial Valley and a
lifeline that helps sustain the fragile Salton Sea ecosystem.
Now, after decades of inertia on its pollution problems, the New
River has emerged as an important test of binational cooperation
on border water issues. These issues were profiled in the 2004
PBS documentary Two Sides of a River.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch map, which is
suitable for framing, explains the river’s apportionment, history
and the need to adapt its management for urban growth and
expected climate change impacts.
As part of the historic Colorado
River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for
thousands of years due to its elevation of 237 feet below
sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The Mexican Water Treaty of 1944 committed the U.S. to deliver
1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico on an annual basis, plus
an additional 200,000 acre-feet under surplus conditions. The
treaty is overseen by the International Boundary and Water
Commission.
Colorado River water is delivered to Mexico at Morelos Dam,
located 1.1 miles downstream from where the California-Baja
California land boundary intersects the river between the town of
Los Algodones in northwestern Mexico and Yuma County, Ariz.
The Colorado River Delta is located
at the natural terminus of the Colorado River at the Gulf of
California, just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The desert
ecosystem was formed by silt flushed downstream from the Colorado
and fresh and brackish water mixing at the Gulf.
The Colorado River Delta once covered 9,650 square miles but has
shrunk to less than 1 percent of its original size due to
human-made water diversions.
This printed issue of Western Water examines how the various
stakeholders have begun working together to meet the planning
challenges for the Colorado River Basin, including agreements
with Mexico, increased use of conservation and water marketing,
and the goal of accomplishing binational environmental
restoration and water-sharing programs.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study and what its
finding might mean for the future of the lifeblood of the
Southwest.
This printed issue of Western Water explores some of the major
challenges facing Colorado River stakeholders: preparing for
climate change, forging U.S.-Mexico water supply solutions and
dealing with continued growth in the basins states. Much of the
content for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the September 2009 Colorado River Symposium.
This printed copy of Western Water examines the Colorado River
Delta, its ecological significance and the lengths to which
international, state and local efforts are targeted and achieving
environmental restoration while recognizing the needs of the
entire river’s many users.