Border water: sovereignty, scarcity, and security in the U.S.-Mexican binational region

Abstract

Security and water are inextricably and increasingly linked. Water and its related issues have recently risen to make U.S.-Mexican relations as tense as they are over drugs, immigration, and violence. For example, last year a Congressional initiative urged President George W. Bush to withhold waters from the Colorado River until a deficit owed to the United States by Mexico was paid from the Río Conchos. Under today’s drought conditions and predictions, the United States may be unable to deliver current levels of Colorado River water to Mexico. For decades, the treaties and institutions set up between the United States and Mexico to deal with transboundary and binational issues have served as models of cooperation around the world. The relations between the two “friends” culminated in a Joint Declaration by Presidents Vicente Fox and Bush, as it so happens, in early (pre-9/11) September 2001. However, extraordinary population growth in the border region1, largely unaddressed environmental infrastructure deficit, rapid industrialization, and a rise in the middle class in Mexico has stressed water availability, energy fuels and electricity, air quality, biodiversity, and proper handling and disposal of hazardous waste streams, in turn stressing the relations between the two neighbors. Resolution of these tensions will preclude binational strife. Some opportunities do exist. Insights revealed by comparing and contrasting successful and failed examples of cooperation show the need for innovation and reinvention