The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network)
There’s an old saying in Texas–whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting. No one’s reached for their six-guns yet, but nowhere is the verbal sparring more intense over water than in the lower Rio Grande Valley. The reason? That great icon of the old west, the Rio Grande River, is drying up. At best, a bare trickle of river water is all that reaches its natural terminus, the Gulf of Mexico. Further upstream, slower, shallower flow is concentrating pollutants and endangering wildlife. The culprits include a long-term drought, wasteful water practices by agriculture, and poor management of available water. As the drought continues, so does the demand for water. The Valley is experiencing explosive growth, and is home to many of the fastest growing cities in both the U.S. and Mexico. The total population of the Valley has doubled from 1.1 million to more than 2.2 million since 1970. And it’s expected to double again by 2030.
There was a time when snowmelt from the mountains of southern Colorado provided ample water to the Rio Grande, which winds its way through Colorado and New Mexico, then into Texas, forming the Texas-Mexican border, before flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. For the last ten or 15 years no water from snowmelt has made it to the Lower Rio Grande. Indeed, last June the San Antonio Express newspaper reported this: “For the first time in more than 50 years, the flow of Rio Grande water through the majestic canyons of Big Bend National Park has dried up. . . . springs and occasional rises have kept some areas in the park flowing, but in other stretches the once-mighty Rio Grande is a series of stagnant pools separated by stretches of dry gravel.”
Two other rivers that dump into the Rio Grande, Mexico’s Rio Conchos, and Texas’s Pecos River have also experienced drought and, in the case of the Conchos, pressure from population increase and the demands of agriculture in Mexico. Lately the Mexican government has been violating an international agreement and holding back much of the river’s allocation that is supposed to go to the Rio Grande, say Mitchell Mathis and Tyrus Fain, two experts on the Rio Grande.
What little water there is, is being used inefficiently, but there is a solution. The standard farming practice is to use open furrow flooding of fields, which allows for quick evaporation and seepage into the ground. Agriculture uses 85 percent of the available river water; individuals and communities use the rest. Dr. Mitchell Mathis, an environmental economist who specializes in natural resource and environmental policy, directed an international study on the Lower Rio Grande to determine how much water agriculture would have to give up to accommodate increasing population. The answer, it turns out, is “not much.” A reduction in the range of nine to 15 percent would support the Valley’s projected population growth through the year 2030.
But big problems remain. Conservation costs money. Farmers won’t pay; either will anybody else. Further, says Tyrus Fain, president of the nonprofit Rio Grande Institute (an organization which fosters appreciation of the unique economic, cultural and natural resources of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo basin), water management of the Rio Grande is “a nightmare.” Fain (and Mathis) notes there are local, state, regional, and federal agencies, three Mexican states, and six Indian tribes involved in managing the river’s water. There are water agreements that have been in effect since the early 1900s that beg for renegotiating, but, says Fain, “all politics are local. All the energy goes not into saving the river, but into fighting for who gets what.”
CONTACTS
Mitchell Mathis: Environmental Economist
Houston Advanced Research Center
4800 Research Forest Drive
The Woodlands, TX 77381
Phone: (281) 364-4023
Tyrus G. Fain: President
The Rio Grande Institute
Marathon, TX 79842
Phone: (915) 386-4336
LINKS
WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City features an archive of transcripts of stories broadcast on The Osgood File.
The Houston Advanced Research Center is a nonprofit organization based in The Woodlands, Texas, dedicated to improving human and ecosystem well being. The organization’s Web site includes an article on water management.
The Rio Grande Institute fosters appreciation of the unique economic, cultural and natural resources of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo basin and promotes conservation of its resources.
America’s River Communities (ARC) is an organization of river-based nonprofits dedicated to educating the public about the challenges facing them. This organization is developing a PBS film on the Rio Grande.
Borderland’s Information Center Web site provides information on the Texas/Mexico border region.
Sabal Palm Audubon Center is on the Rio Grande along the US Mexico border that has a bird sanctuary threatened by a lack of Rio Grande water.
Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park is also threatened by lack of river water.
United States Geological Survey (USGS) provides information on Rio Grande Valley, Texas.
This is a study on pollution in the Rio Grande from Trade and Environmental Database group (TED).
