Kelly, Mary E.

English

University of New Mexico

Volume 39 
Issue 1 Coping with Scarcity in the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Drainage Basin: Lessons to be Learned 
from the Droughts of 1993-1996 
Winter 1999 
The Drought in Texas: Its Impact and Consequences 
Mary E. Kelly 
Recommended Citation 
Mary E. Kelly, The Drought in Texas: Its Impact and Consequences, 39 Nat. Resources J. 129 (1999). 
Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol39/iss1/10 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UNM Digital Repository. It has been 
accepted for inclusion in Natural Resources Journal by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For more 
information, please contact amywinter@unm.edu, lsloane@salud.unm.edu, sarahrk@unm.edu. 
MARY E. KELLY*
The Drought in Texas: Its Impact and
Consequences
The recent drought illustrated that we have still failed to deal with
three extremely important issues: (1) the lack of change in the management
of the Rio Bravo, which is still managed primarily for agriculture, even as
municipal and other needs are increasing more rapidly; (2) the failure to
face the need to regulate groundwater pumping in Texas; and (3) the need
to strengthen the binational framework for groundwater management.
These three issues are serious barriers to effective water management in
this region.
AGRICULTURAL WATER USE ISSUES
John Baker, Commissioner of the Texas Natural Resource
Conservation Commission (TNRCC), in his speech presented at the
Cuernavaca conference on issues surrounding the waters of the Rio
Grande/Rio Bravo Basin, alluded to the fact that we now have a culture of
residential/municipal water users that expects cheap water. I agree with
that statement, but it is also applicable to agricultural users. Irrigators in the
Texas portion of the Rio Bravo basin have come to expect not only cheap
water, but also that the river will be managed primarily for their needs.
Irrigated agriculture still uses and retains paper rights to the vast
majority of the Texas share of Rio Bravo waters. Irrigation accounts for
almost 90 percent of the water use in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, for
example. Yet, the application of conservation techniques to water use in
this sector has been extremely slow, primarily because the water is so
cheap. There is little incentive to conserve in the absence of price structures
that foster conservation. The main question, however, is how do we
actually change price structures for irrigation water from the Rio Bravo?
Should the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC)/
Comisidn de Limites y Agua (CILA) begin to consider charging for water
released to the two countries? Should the state of Texas examine the need
for water pricing changes just for the Texas share? Does the responsibility
lie with the large irrigation districts? There does seem to be broad
consensus that little conservation will occur without some modification to
the pricing structure, but the question of how those modifications will
occur is rarely discussed.
Another issue is how we deal with agricultural water use when
projecting water demand into the future. The Texas Water Development
* Director, Texas Center for Policy Studies, 44 East Ave. # 306, Austin, Texas, tcps@igc.apc.org.
NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL
Board projections for the Lower Rio Grande Valley, for example, do not
consider that much of the irrigated agricultural land may be lost to
residential and commercial development over the next 20 years in this
rapidly growing region. Thus, we end up with projections that show little
or no decline in agricultural water use, and cities, therefore, begin to look
to expensive and potentially environmentally-destructive water supply
alternatives such as channel dams. Given the feasibility of water rights
marketing in the Rio Grande (because of the existing watermaster system),
it would be unfortunate if inter-sectoral allocation options are not
exhausted before new dams are contemplated.
A related issue is the lack of an accurate analysis of how much of
the paper irrigation rights are really being used. Our preliminary analyses
of agricultural use figures (which are often based on estimates, not actual
metering) indicate that agricultural use may be far below paper rights. If
that is true, then there is more water available than is generally assumed.
If these rights have been unused for the statutory period of time (10 years),
then the state's environmental agency, Texas Natural Resource
Conservation Commission (TNRCC), should begin statutorily-authorized
water rights cancellation procedures. The new Senate Bill 1 (involving
comprehensive water planning legislation adopted by the state of Texas in
1997) should provide some incentive and funding for better water rights
tracking and better water availability models for the Rio Bravo.
Finally, in the upper portion of the Texas/Mexico Rio Bravo basin,
the barriers to El Paso's ability to increase its use of surface waters and
decrease its reliance on the binational aquifers are directly linked to
management changes for Caballo and Elephant Butte reservoirs. Year-
round, in-channel releases of water from these reservoirs-versus releases
made solely to meet irrigators needs-could significantly reduce the costs
of El Paso's shift to surface water. Such releases should also improve water
quality and riparian habitat conditions throughout the stretch of the Rio
Grande from the reservoirs to Big Bend National Park.
GROUNDWATER ISSUES
As other researchers have repeatedly pointed out, the 1944 Treaty
between the United States and Mexico governing the allocation of
transboundary surface waters (the waters of the Rio Grande and the
Colorado) failed to deal with binational groundwater reserves. This failure
must be addressed in order to have effective and sustainable long-term
management of water resources in the basin. This is, of course, true not
only in the El Paso/Judrez/southem New Mexico region, but also in the
middle border region, where there are strong interconnections between
groundwater and levels in Amistad Reservoir and where the southern-
[Vol. 39
Winter 1999] DROUGHT IN TEXAS 131
most portion of the Trinity/Edwards aquifer extends across the border into
Mexico.
Texas must also come to grips with the need to regulate
groundwater pumping in Texas through, at a minimum, a modified rule
of capture. TNRCC Chairman Barry McBee suggested a thoughtful
approach to this issue early in his term, but he did not receive the necessary
support from other statewide political leaders. That is disappointing,
because the drought, at least, got everyone thinking. If top state leaders
continue to be unwilling to face facts, it is likely to take another severe
drought to move the issue forward.


The Drought in Texas: Its Impact and Consequences

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The Drought in Texas: Its Impact and Consequences

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