Associated Press | May 23, 2002 HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) - Parched farmland, a summer drought and frustrated farmers have raised the stakes in the international struggle over water flowing through the Rio Grande.
About 200 Texas farmers planned to bring tractors and pickup trucks to an international bridge Thursday in an attention-getting protest over what they complain is an overdue promise by Mexico to allow more Rio Grande water flow into Texas.
``We're going to park our tractors where we can block all the produce trucks,'' Mission farmer Tommy Garcia said. ``Then we'll go ahead and drive to the center of the bridge.''
They are expected to be joined by farmers on the Mexican side, likewise suffering because they depend on the upriver dam releases stipulated by a 1944 water-sharing treaty.
Mexico has been criticized by farmers and politicians in south Texas who claim that crops in Mexico's upriver Rio Grande watershed are flourishing while those in south Texas are dying - allegedly because Mexico has not kept up with its end of the treaty.
Under the treaty, Mexico receives 1.8 billion acre feet of water a year from the United States, four times the amount it gives to its northern neighbor. One acre foot equals 325,851 gallons, the amount necessary to cover one acre of land with one foot of water.
Mexico contributes water to the United States from six rivers flowing into the Rio Conchos in the northern Chihuahua state. The Rio Conchos flows into the Rio Grande, which Texas farmers rely on for irrigation.
Mexico currently owes the U.S. more than 1.5 million acre feet.
Carlos Rubinstein, who as Rio Grande watermaster controls water accounts up and down the river, said Wednesday that this has been the driest May on record. If the sunny skies continue into August, reservoirs may dip to record low levels.
``We're all going to a place we've never been before,'' Rubinstein said at a meeting of the Watermaster Advisory Committee.
The bridge the farmers plan to protest on is owned by the city of Pharr. Pharr officials, hoping to keep the demonstration peaceful, said they were offering protesters an area near the bridge where they could gather and park their tractors.
But some farmers said they plan to disrupt traffic, by far the most dramatic manifestation to date of their resentment of prospering Mexican farms. Farmers here said the water that is being used on those crops should have been used to pay the water debt.
On the Net:
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