July 4, 2003, 12:54AM Mexico agrees to send irrigation water to Texas Pact guarantees one-third of conserved portion for U.S. Associated Press
In an agreement signed Thursday, Mexico has guaranteed that a third of the water conserved by irrigation projects in the state of Chihuahua will be sent to American farmers in South Texas. Sally Spener, a spokeswoman for the International Boundary and Water Commission, said that Minute 309 signed in El Paso followed through on last year's Minute 308, in which Mexico agreed to transfer 90,000 acre feet of water from Falcon Lake to the United States. Both pacts are amendments to a 1944 water sharing treaty stipulating that the United States and Mexico share water from the Rio Grande and Colorado River. Mexico has not been meeting its commitment to send the United States 350,000 acre feet annually and now owes the United States 1.4 million acre feet. An acre foot is enough to flood an acre of land a foot deep. South Texas farmers were outraged to hear that last year's agreement also called for millions of dollars to be sent to Mexico to better irrigation systems. The $40 million was to come from the North American Development Bank, a binational fund. Mexico is expected to be able to send the United States 107,014 acre feet of saved water annually once the projects are completed in about three years, Spener said. "What this does is enhance Mexico's ability to deliver the water that is required under the treaty," she said. State Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, reached at her home late Thursday afternoon, said she was "cautiously optimistic" about the news. "We keep waiting and I think that the reason we got this far is because we refused to budge until they gave us something," she said. She said she was concerned that there was still no plan to pay back the debt.
