McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — Mexico missed its deadline last weekend to pay the United States water it owes under a 1944 treaty, and South Texas communities are suffering, lawmakers tell Border Report.
It wasn’t the first time Mexico has failed to meet its obligations.
Since the 1990s, Mexico has consistently missed paying the 1.75 million acre-feet of water that it owes, according to the treaty.
U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Texas, who represents a swath of South Texas borderlands, told Border Report on Thursday that it’s actually been many decades since Mexico has paid the water it owes the United States on time and in the correct amount.
“They have continuously missed that deadline many times over the last 80 years And due to failed leadership from people who held this position for the last 80 years, nothing was done,” De La Cruz said.
She said she spoke Thursday with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and asked her for immediate help to try to get water to the Rio Grande to hurting South Texas communities and farmers.
“This morning I spoke with Secretary Rollins and discussed what the future looks like for the 1944 Water Treaty and asked her to continue to apply pressure to the Mexican government. My ask is that she ask them for an additional 350,000 acre-feet of water within the next six months,” De La Cruz said.
U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, told Border Report that harsher actions need to be taken against Mexico.
“You’ve got to have a carrot and stick and you’ve got to use the stick, right, whenever they don’t pay,” he said. “The only way that I think we can actually get this resolved is by putting economic pressure on them. But we have a massive treaty, which makes it so complicated because it’s not just South Texas that’s involved in that treaty. It’s the whole country.”
Mexico paid the United States 867,749 acre-feet of water, as of Sept. 18, the latest data available from the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission.
That’s about half what it owes the United States during the five-year cycle that just ended.
Under the terms of the treaty, the United States must pay Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet of water annually via the Colorado River.
And the United States has always met its obligations, officials say.
But Mexico continually does not, and often pays years later, if at all, they say.
That has resulted in South Texas farmers struggling to water fields without water from the Rio Grande. Municipalities are also threatened. In early 2024, the state’s only sugar mill shut down because there wasn’t enough water to grow the thirsty crops, which are near non-existent in the Rio Grande Valley now.
De La Cruz says the citrus industry now is threatened and if it falters it could cause millions of dollars in economic losses to the region.
“We have to keep the pressure on the Mexican government and keep them giving us water,” she said.
“What we should be doing is finding a way to renegotiate the treaty that we have now, and there’s a process to doing that. And we need to initiate that through the State Department and sit down and say, OK, we need to renegotiate a treaty that’s fair and equitable and that actually has teeth to assure that when people are in violation, there’s something that we could do in response,” Gonzalez said.
“The other thing that the United States needs to do is to start holding back the water that we pay them,” Gonzalez said. “The water that comes from the Colorado that goes to Mexico. And those are the only real methods to assure that we can apply the appropriate pressure so they fulfill our water obligation.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration withheld some water from the Colorado River to Mexico, which officials say sent a message.
During the cycle that ended in October 2020, Mexico came close to meeting its obligation by paying 1.6 million acre-feet of water, but it still fell short, according to IBWC data.
But this time, it really missed the mark and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, says Mexico doesn’t even seem to care about financial retributions after U.S. officials told Mexican officials they would withhold funds unless they paid the full water amount.
“They didn’t blink. They want the water more than they need some of the monies that we sent them,” Cuellar told Border Report on Thursday. “That’s why I think we need to put some enforcement language in the 1944 water treaty. So since there’s a revision of the USMCA this coming year and there’s already work coming up, I think we need to put some enforcement or some teeth in this water treaty and we can do it.”
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is up for renegotiations and Cuellar and De La Cruz say putting punitive measures in it to force Mexico to pay the water it owes is necessary.
“I know Mexico needs their water, but we need our water also. And we just have to put some sort of enforcement mechanism because otherwise we’re gonna see the same thing every five years,” Cuellar said.
All agree that Mexico isn’t the only to blame. Increased population and construction on both sides of the border, as well as climate change, have taxed water supplies.
All say that Mexico needs a better way for storing water so it can send what it owes to the United States — under the treaty that’s an average of 350,000 acre-feet of water per year.
And they say the United States and southern border communities need to better conserve what water we have.
Gonzalez says he recently helped to get $50 million worth of lining material that are being installed in his district to prevent evaporation from open canals.
But all say long-term solutions, like desalination plants and finding ways to turn brackish and storm water into potable water are necessary.
The third annual 2025 Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Binational River Symposium is scheduled for Nov. 5-7 in McAllen, and is expected to draw leaders from both sides of the border to discuss future long-term water solutions, as well as current water needs.
The event is being held by the nonprofit Texas Water Foundation.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.
Read: Read More