South Texas leaders rally at 1st water symposium to tackle ‘crisis’ on border

PHARR, Texas ( Border Report) — The dwindling Rio Grande, lack of water payments from Mexico and discussions on how local border communities can rally together to find future water solutions were front and center on Tuesday at the first Deep South Texas State of Water Symposium.

About 250 lawmakers, leaders and agricultural representatives from the Rio Grande Valley, Laredo, Austin and even as far away as Presidio — in the Big Bend — came to the day-long symposium, which was held in the border town of Pharr.

“The reality is we have to talk about water. We don’t have enough. We’re not doing enough. We have to cohesively come together from farmers, ranches and municipalities,” Texas state Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, who co-hosted the event, told participants at the beginning of the event. “Thank you for being here. The reason you’re here is because you are scared or you care or you know there’s something you have to do.”

Sarah Schlesinger, CEO of the Texas Water Foundation, said the state expects to experience a 70% population growth over the next 50 years from 29.5 million to 51 million people, and much of that growth will be in South Texas.

But water supplies are not keeping up with growth, she said.

And Mexico has not paid the water it owes the United States during the current five-year cycle, which ends in October 2025, and it doesn’t appear they will be able to make the required payment under an international treaty, Maria-Elena Giner, U.S. Commissioner for the International Boundary and Water Commission, told participants Tuesday.

“Unfortunately I don’t have good news,” she said.

Giner said the Rio Grande Valley is “90% dependent on the Rio Grande” and the region needs to come up with other long-term solutions to meet water needs in South Texas.

She added that the United States also has contributed less to the Rio Grande in the past few years due to growth and demand. She released that report a few weeks ago before a quarterly meeting in Mercedes, Texas.

“It has been a very scary thing for me to do as the head of this agency and it makes people very uncomfortable, but I felt it was our duty as an agency,” she said.

In February, the state’s lone sugar cane mill shut down due to not enough water in the Rio Grande for farmers to grow the thirsty plants.

Now citrus crops in the Rio Grande Valley are threatened.

Jed Murray, of the Texas International Produce Association, said the industry is projected to lose $200 million this season if there continues to be no water for crops. During a question-and-answer period, he asked panelists why there aren’t stricter water conservation efforts put on communities and said he doesn’t feel the general public understands how agriculture is suffering.

“There’s some growers that are completely distraught and upset. I mean, they rented ground and, like me, they can’t farm. I couldn’t farm last year. I can’t farm next year. I can’t plant anything at all. We’re moving into other growing locations outside of the Valley,” Murray told Border Report. “I’m working through who I’m going to lay off right now. This is not a good scenario, and it’s not a healthy scenario for our small communities, too.”

Murray says 100% of farmers have been impacted by reduced water supplies, but municipalities not so much.

McAllen and other towns are in Stage 2 watering restrictions, which means homeowners can water lawns twice a week on specific days. Since May, Stage 3 restrictions have been in place farther upstream in Laredo, which forbids any lawn watering.

“One grower threw away 40% of his citrus last year because it didn’t make the right size to be able to sell it,” Murray said.

“We’re facing a water crisis because of drought, growth in population, and aging infrastructure and we need to come together and offer solutions,” state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, told Border Report. “We cannot depend or rely on water from Mexico.”

Hinojosa is vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He says the state has about $22 billion in its Rainy Day Fund and that if local leaders unite as one voice and come together with solutions, they can apply for state funds, as well as matching federal funds.

“This coming session water will be one of our priorities,” said Hinojosa, who co-hosted Tuesday’s symposium along with Canales.

Both Hinojosa and Canales candidly said during one panel on Tuesday that the Rio Grande Valley is too fragmented and has too many irrigation districts and municipalities, all vying for separate funding.

There are 27 separate irrigation districts and several water municipalities all located within the Rio Grande Valley.

Canales said the challenge is speaking in one voice. He likened it to when the Rio Grande Valley finally formed one RGV Metropolitan Planning Organization, which catapulted the region as the fifth-largest in the entire state and made it eligible for millions more dollars in road funds.

“It’s not about a regional approach, it’s about a regional response to the situation,” Canales said.

State Sen. Morgan LaMantia, of Cameron County, was also on that panel and she suggested diversifying infrastructure projects and stricter conservation methods.

Developing water treatment plants to convert brackish water into usable water for businesses and industry, like watering golf courses and SpaceX, and developing desalination plants to convert water from the Gulf of Mexico into drinking water, were among long-term and expensive solutions tossed out Tuesday.

Carlos Galvan, of the Laguna Madre Water District, in Port Isabel, Texas, on Tuesday said they were looking at developing a desalination plant.

Corpus Christi, about 150 miles north, is building a desalination plant and has already received over half a billion dollars in state funding. A desalination plant is also being developed in the South Texas town of Alice, located just north of the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas.

“I hope this conversation doesn’t stop even if the reservoirs are full because it’s not a question if, it’s a question when the water will run out,” LaMantia said.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.

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