Stories he can tell

By Gregg Wenforf
Advance News Journal

People take water for granted, until it runs low. The problem for developers, business owners, and residents in the Rio Grande Valley is that the availability of water here depends in large part on a water treaty the U.S. has had with Mexico since 1944. What makes this a problem is that Mexico is almost always behind on its water payments.

If you want to talk “water,” which again, we all take for granted, until it runs low, one of the best sources for info is Sonny Hinojosa, who has served as General Manager of Hidalgo County Irrigation District #2 for the past 28 years, going back to 1995, when NAFTA and the entire border region were ready to take off.

Before his stint with #2, Hinojosa was the Assistant Rio Grande Watermaster for eight years.

Indeed, over the past 28 years, almost 30, the population in Hidalgo County has basically tripled, from approximately 279,000 in 1990 compared to approximately 840,000 in 2020, per the U.S. Census.

It’s like some pundit, though, once chimed: We may be home to more people, but where’s the extra water going to come from?

According to Hinojosa, the good news is, our average annual use from the Amistad/Falcon Reservoir System has remained approximately 1.1 million acre feet for the past 36 years. Yes, we use more in drier years and less in above normal rainfall years, but our annual average remains the same. There is a shift in use, though. As more farmland is developed (urbanized), the shift from agricultural use to municipal use occurs.

As this calendar year winds to an end, however, one thing remains the same — Mexico is still not living up to its treaty of 1944, officially styled: “The Mexican Water Treaty of 1944.”

It’s Frustrating

For Hinojosa and other local watermasters like him, the frustration over the decades has been, in part, the U.S. State Department’s seeming inability to enforce the treaty.

The 1944 Water Treaty runs on a five-year cycle or sooner if the U.S. share of conservation capacity fills in the System then a new five-year cycle begins. In many cycles past, Mexico would withhold water that should flow into the two international reservoirs that feed our water needs — Amistad and Falcon — until the very end of the five-year cycle.

“The problem with that idea,” Hinojosa said, “is the question of how much water does Mexico have when the five-year cycle ends? If they’re flush with water, no problem; but if they’re dry, we’re not getting the water we are due. There have been times when their reservoirs, which feed Amistad and Falcon, for example, have been filled to capacity, but they refused to release any water into the international reservoirs, even though some of our farmers and citrus people were begging for water.”

According to Hinojosa, “We’re not getting water from Mexico like we should, while they show a total disregard toward the (1944) treaty.” The Treaty states that Mexico should deliver a minimum of 350,000 acre feet per year unless they are experiencing extraordinary drought or serious accident to their hydraulic system. This cycle, Mexico has experienced neither.

In fact, while local farmers and citrus and sugar cane producers are limited to an annual water allotment, Mexico is building an oasis in the desert by using, in part, the water that rightfully belongs to us.

“Look up near Presidio (250 miles southeast of El Paso),” Hinojosa said, “and look at how Mexico is making that desert land fertile, like an oasis, by using the water from the Rio Conchos, which is one of the six tributaries the U.S. is entitled to receive one-third the runoff from. We see it going on, and our State Department does nothing.”

Mexico admits they do not allocate any water to the United States. When they allocate their water in the fall of each year to their states and irrigation districts, the U.S. is not even in their plan. They gamble on Mother Nature to provide sufficient runoff below their lowermost dams to satisfy their Treaty obligation. We have requested for many years to make the United States a “user” when they allocate their water and our request is never considered, Hinojosa said.

This same Treaty divides the water on the western side of the Continental Divide and the U.S. always makes good on their deliveries to Mexico on the Colorado River. Yet, on the eastern side of the Continental Divide, the most productive part of the Rio Grande watershed is in Mexico, yet we are not even considered a user.

Yet, said Hinojosa, no matter how long and loud local officials cry, beg, and plead to the U.S. State Department — do something to make Mexico abide by the water treaty — nothing ever gets done. One presidential administration will come and go, and then a new one will come in, with new hopes, and in the end, the same thing happens — nothing. The only exception was when Donald Trump was president. When the previous five-year cycle was coming to an end and Mexico was very much behind in their deliveries, the Mexican president did everything in his power to meet the deadline with no deficit in water deliveries. Although there was a loss of life from one of the rioters that had attempted to take over the control of the water releases, the cycle ended with no deficit.

A New Role

These days, after stepping down as Watermaster for Hidalgo County Irrigation District #2 for the past 28 years, Hinojosa is working a new challenge: Water Advocate for the local area.

Apparently, even though he wanted to retire from full-time work, the #2 board didn’t want to say goodbye to Sonny Hinojosa’s water expertise. After all, with more than three decades spent tied to local water issues under his belt, his wisdom and experience carried with it, a lot of value, for the district, for water right owners, for the Rio Grande Valley in general.

So the irrigation district’s board offered Hinojosa a contract to work as water advocate along the river, looking for better ways to conserve the water we do have, while trying to figure out a better way to get the 1944 Water Treaty in synch with its provisions.

“That’s not all I’m going to do, but I’m here until at least the end of the year,” he said. “I’m not really retiring.”