IBWC officially accepts first portion of Mexico water

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MERCEDES — Mexico has begun to make good on a good-faith offer it made to the United States a month-and-a-half ago as it struggles to catch up with a four-year deficit on water deliveries to the Rio Grande.

That was the news announced during a “citizens forum” meeting at the Mercedes offices of the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission on Thursday.

“The first order for 10 CMS (cubic meters per second) was submitted last Wednesday. It was submitted last Wednesday to be transferred yesterday (Dec. 4),” Delbert Humberson, an IBWC hydrologist, explained to a small group of local water managers and experts.

“So, it’s happening as we speak. … It’s not an exaggeration. It’s happening right here, right now,” he said.

Humberson was referring to a delivery of water that is not normally an avenue for deliveries under the terms of a 1944 water sharing treaty between the United States and Mexico.

That treaty governs how the two countries share the waters of both the Colorado River and the Rio Grande, as their two expansive watersheds crisscross both nations.

When it comes to the Rio Grande, Mexico is obligated to deliver some 1.75 million acre feet of water to the river from six Mexican tributaries that are specifically named within the treaty.

Mexico must fulfill that obligation over the course of a five-year cycle which would, ideally, mean that it delivers approximately 350,000 acre feet of water to the Rio Grande each year.

But long droughts and hotter years across much of the American Southwest and Mexico’s northern states has meant that the country has repeatedly fallen behind on its water delivery obligation.

The fourth year of the current five-year cycle ended this October, but thus far, Mexico has delivered barely more than one year’s worth of water.

Enter the Rio San Juan.

Another Mexican river within the Rio Grande Watershed, the Rio San Juan’s waters are typically not included in the treaty as an acceptable method for Mexico to deliver water to the U.S.

That’s because it meets the Rio Grande just a few miles north of Rio Grande City’s city limits, far south of Falcon Dam.

Without a dam to capture and store it in a reservoir, the Rio San Juan’s waters cannot be stopped from flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

But over the course of this summer, while drought and low precipitation continued to wrack the upper portions of the Rio Grande Watershed, Tropical Storm Alberto managed to drop some rainfall over the Rio San Juan.

As a result, the two dams that hold water back there — the El Cuchillo and Marte Gomez dams — are currently over-capacity.

They are the only two reservoirs in the entire Rio Grande system that boast an excess of water.

And it’s water that Mexico cannot hold indefinitely, so the country made the U.S. an offer.

Mexico offered to release up to 150 million cubic meters — or about 120,000 acre feet — worth of Rio San Juan water at the time and choosing of American water users.

In exchange, Mexico wanted the U.S. to give it treaty credit for the deliveries.

On Oct. 18, IBWC Commissioner Maria Elena Giner excitedly and hopefully announced Mexico’s offer during a meeting between the IBWC, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and Rio Grande Valley water managers in San Benito.

During Thursday’s IBWC Citizens Forum, officials announced that Mexico has since increased its offer to 250 million cubic feet, or just under 203,000 acre feet, of water.

Mexico’s offer further states that it can deliver the water in increments through September 2025.

But back at the October meeting, officials with the TCEQ cautioned that diverting the water from the Rio Grande could violate state law.

The problem largely lay in how TCEQ keeps track of a water rights holder’s account via the volumes of water stored behind the Falcon and Amistad dams.

With Rio San Juan water coming into the river downstream of the two dams, TCEQ said it had no mechanism for properly keeping track of such water diversions.

But now, after weeks of bureaucratic wrangling amongst American federal and state water regulators, Mexico has begun delivering the first volumes of Rio San Juan water.

That’s because TCEQ has at last come up with a way to keep track of Rio San Juan diversions while local farmers get the water.

“I am exercising my authority under (the Texas Administrative Code) to distribute water delivered from the Rio San Juan…” Rio Grande Watermaster Georgina Bermea wrote in a Nov. 23 letter to local water rights holders.

Bermea further laid out how the distribution of the Rio San Juan water would work via two appendices included with her letter.

Water rights holders will be granted temporary permits that authorize them to divert water from the Rio Grande that will be good for one year, or until the supply of Rio San Juan water runs out.

A water rights holder must also use Rio San Juan water first before any other water they may have a right to. And they must identify a specific use for the Rio San Juan water.

Back in Mercedes, IBWC officials added that they have also come to an agreement with Mexico on how to give the country treaty credit for the Rio San Juan deliveries.

“There is understanding that there are transit losses as water moves downstream at Anzalduas (Dam). They will get credit for 95% of what they give us,” Humberson said.

Though Mexico has increased its offer by 100 million cubic feet, that still represents less than 15% of what Valley farmers require per year.

Still, the offer may help some farmers be able to produce a crop in the coming year. And both state and federal officials worked hard to get the water to them since Mexico first made the offer.

“It’s been fast and furious for the last few weeks making sure that this was in place so you guys get your water,” Humberson said.

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