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.
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.
Researchers from San Diego State University are launching the
second phase of a survey as they study the effects of pollution
on Tijuana River Valley residents. For decades, the Valley has
been plagued by untreated sewage flows that originate in
Mexico. The Tijuana River not only carries the effluent, but
also large quantities of chemicals and other pollutants into
the U.S. side of the border and the Tijuana River Valley. In
recent years, the contamination has gotten worse as Tijuana’s
sewage infrastructure has collapsed and is constantly sending
millions of gallons of raw sewage north of the border. On a
daily basis, the stench can be overwhelming.
The juniper pollen has cranked up early this year, and the
irrigators with groundwater pumps (legal or not, it’s hard to
know) are firing them up, but the most telling sign of spring
was the kettling sandhill cranes this morning. … This winter
has been dry in the headwaters, and the latest forecast calls
for just half of normal flows on the Rio Grande entering New
Mexico’s “Middle Valley,” where the cranes and I live. … We’ll
be fine. We’re used to this. Irrigators will troop down to the
irrigation district board meeting the second Monday of each
month to complain about not getting water to grow stuff, but
there’s a sad resignation to the ritual. We live in a desert.
Water is a blessing when it comes, but the reality of desert
living requires a stoicism of stubborn acceptance.
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.
