Mumme, Stephen P.

English

University of New Mexico

Volume 40 
Issue 2 The La Paz Symposium on Transboundary Groundwater Management on the U.S. - 
Mexico Border 
Spring 2000 
The La Paz Symposium on Transboundary Groundwater 
Management on the U.S.-Mexico Border 
Stephen P. Mumme 
Recommended Citation 
Stephen P. Mumme, The La Paz Symposium on Transboundary Groundwater Management on the U.S.-
Mexico Border, 40 Nat. Resources J. 435 (2000). 
Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol40/iss2/11 
This Comment 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. 
STEPHEN P. MUMME*
The La Paz Symposium on
Transboundary Groundwater
Management on the U.S.-Mexico
Border
Across the gamut of U.S.-Mexico relations, few issues have proven
less tractable than arriving at cooperative solutions for managing the vital
pools of underground water that cross the international boundary. Over a
quarter century has lapsed since Mexico and the United States formally
acknowledged the need for a comprehensive agreement on border
groundwater. With that pact, the International Boundary and Water
Commission's Minute 242, signed in 1973, the United States and Mexico
committed to limiting their withdrawals along the border near San Luis Rio
Colorado, Sonora, and Yuma, Arizona, pending a comprehensive
agreement on groundwater along their common border, and to notifying
each other of new national groundwater development in the border area.
Now, twenty-six years later, the promise of Minute 242 seems more
symbolic than real. While the two nations have complied with the letter of
their agreement to inform each other of new groundwater development,
the spirit of that agreement, an implied pledge to find a mutually accept-
able allocation of their shared groundwater, has not been realized. In the
meantime, the two nations have become ever more dependent on this vital
resource.
In February 1999, the International Transboundary Resources
Center of the University of New Mexico's School of Law, the Udall Center
for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona, and the School of
Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, convened a group of
research scholars and policy practitioners in La Paz, Baja California Sur, for
the purpose of revisiting the groundwater issue and exploring potential
avenues of cooperation in managing the border's transboundary aquifers.
This meeting, supported by the Ford Foundation, was, in no small
measure, a tribute to the late Albert E. Utton's enduring commitment to
fostering binational cooperation in managing shared groundwaters. The
meeting provided a unique opportunity to examine groundwater problems
as various as the utilization and development of groundwater in the El
Paso-Ciudad Juirez metroplex to the lining of the All-American Canal in
California's Imperial Valley and its implications for Mexicali Valley
farmers.
* Professor, Colorado State University
NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL
The papers and commentaries given at the La Paz symposium and
presented in this volume document both countries' increased reliance on
transboundary aquifers to sustain traditional water uses in agriculture,
urban areas, and industry as well as the critical role these aquifers play in
sustaining the region's biodiversity. While many national economic
practices and legal rules influencing groundwater utilization on each side
of the border remain altered only by a small degree since Minute 242 was
signed, these profiles of utilization patterns and conflicting demands for
transboundary groundwater depict a dynamic and changing social and
institutional context. In various ways these papers demonstrate that a mere
allocation of groundwater as contemplated a quarter century back is no
longer sufficient; the two countries now face the challenge of cooperatively
managing their common groundwater for multiple objectives and
sustained yield. The arrival of new stakeholders in water policy is
challenging established priorities and practices in border groundwater
management and has drawn attention to the needs of communities whose
voices have long been excluded from border water policy-making.
The papers and commentaries from the La Paz Symposium also
highlight the institutional dimensions of the changing binational context
for considering solutions to current and emerging groundwater problems.
Institutional developments as diverse as the 1983 Border Environmental
Cooperation Agreement, the Border XMI Program, the Border Environment
Cooperation Commission, and the Commission on Environmental
Cooperation are stimulating greater government commitment to sustain-
able utilization of water resources in the border region. These new policy
initiatives and international agencies are influencing older players in
binational water management to include state agencies and the longstand-
ing International Boundary and Water Commission. While the legal and
political impediments to greater cooperation in binational groundwater
management remain, these new innovations in binational resource
management nurture potential synergies and opportunities to improve the
basis for mutual understanding of shared problems and an envisioning of
common solutions. The innovative scholarly efforts of Al Utton and
colleagues to define credible models in international law for international
cooperation in transboundary groundwater management complement the
recent work of the International Law Association and the United Nations
in this area. Such initiatives are setting a sounder foundation for the
equitable apportionment and sustainable management of groundwater
resources straddling international boundaries.
That the sustainable development and utilization of the border's
cross-boundary aquifers requires the cooperation and mutual engagement
of both countries is even more evident today than when Minute 242 was
signed in 1973. The La Paz symposium papers explore the issues, the
complexity, and the urgency of grappling with groundwater management
[Vol. 40
Spring 20001 CLOSING 437
at the border. They also point to the elements of possible solutions the two
nations may draw upon as they tackle the challenge of husbanding these
resources for their common future. To the extent these symposium
discussions renew and nurture a spirit of binational dialogue and common
purpose in managing the border's groundwater resources, Professor
Utton's vision and purpose will be amply fulfilled.


The La Paz Symposium on Transboundary Groundwater Management on the U.S.-Mexico Border

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1643&amp;context=nrj

The La Paz Symposium on Transboundary Groundwater Management on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of New Mexico