EL PASO, Texas - Water taps spit mud and silt-laden power lines droop lifelessly along a stretch of the Texas-Mexico border, where the land is parched by drought and politics.
For the last two years, residents of Matamoros in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, have often done without water from the end of May through the beginning of September. Across the border, the town of Brownsville, Texas, has lost 30,000 jobs and more than $1 billion in agriculture revenues since 1991, as farmers sell off their land because they have no water to irrigate their crops.
But upriver in the Chihuahua Desert is an oasis of pecan groves and alfalfa fields, created by the Mexican state of Chihuahua with the runoff from tributaries that, angry regional farmers say, should be flowing into the Rio Grande to Tamaulipas.
"We are hurting," said Matamoros water manager Salvador Trevino. "Why should they (Chihuahua) get everything and Tamaulipas get nothing?"
"The Rio Grande isn't a river and it isn't 'grande' or big, anymore," he said.
About 100 farmers used tractors recently to block Las Mariposas bridge between Pharr on the U.S. side and Reynosa in Mexico, the longest international crossing along the 2,000-mile (3,200 km) border, to demand that Mexico pay a long-standing water debt to the United States.
A report this month by the International Boundary and Water Commission showed that Chihuahua has used upriver reservoirs to store water for its own use instead of releasing it into the Rio Grande for residents of south Texas and Tamaulipas.
Sorghum and citrus production has dwindled on farms in the two states on the Gulf of Mexico, causing a decrease in revenues and jobs on both sides of the border.
Mexico President Vicente Fox pledged to make good on the water debt to the United States while trying to find ways to alleviate the drought in both countries.
A water conservation plan is to be presented by next month and a calendar established for delivering water to their neighbors north of the border, the president's office said.
THE DESERT BLOOMS
According to a 1944 treaty, water from six major tributaries that feed the Rio Grande, which forms the border, is to be allowed to flow downstream, with one-third (or a minimum of 350,000 acre-feet) earmarked for south Texas and two-thirds for Tamaulipas.
In return, the United States is to divert 1.75 million acre-feet of water each year from the Colorado River into Mexico - an agreement on which the United States has never defaulted.
But Mexico did default - in 1992 - and since then it has accumulated a water debt of more than 1.5 million acre-feet.
An acre-foot of water is the amount needed to fill an acre (0.4 hectares) to a depth of one foot (30 cm). One acre-foot is equivalent to 325,850 gallons (1.23 million litres). The IBWC report states that during the five-year period ended in September, Chihuahua stored 11.7 million acre-feet of water.
During that period, the report indicates, Chihuahua released 10.2 million acre-feet of water for its use and only 1.2 million acre-feet into the Rio Grande for south Texas and Tamaulipas.
In the meantime, pecan trees and alfalfa are thriving in the Chihuahua Desert, according to U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, the Texas Democrat who represents the Rio Grande Valley.
"Chihuahua is a desert, but they have greener pastures than we do in Brownsville and Matamoros," Ortiz said.
Chihuahua Gov. Patricio Martinez acknowledges his state owes water to south Texas, but says he doesn't have the extra water to repay the debt.
Farmers on both sides of the border are begging their governments to stop Chihuahua from diverting the water, with Texans calling for sanctions to be levied against Mexico.
The deadline for Mexico to settle its debt is Sept. 30. But Ortiz said some farmers could be out of business before then. Instead, they are hoping for a miracle.
"Everyone at home is praying for a hurricane," he said.:
