Full of Hot Air
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
Day late and a dollar short. That would define the tough-guy talk aimed at Mexico now coming from U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and a number of his colleagues in D.C., which could serve as a shooting location for spinoffs from “The Walking Dead.” Great series about zombies that prey on the weak.
Cornyn’s tough talk about Mexico, though, could be called: “All talk, no action,” or how local ag legend Wayne Showers used to describe someone with no real substance: “All tent, no circus.”
In Texas, that’s the same thing as saying, “All hat, no cattle.”
When career politicians like Cornyn finally come up with some solution to a problem, like the current water-shortage crisis we’re facing in South Texas, and that’s really what it is, a crisis, you can almost always bet that it will be totally irrelevant to the matter at hand.
You’re left sitting around, scratching your head, saying, this doesn’t make any sense.
Of course it doesn’t make any sense. It’s based on politics. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Hello. Which has nothing to do with the real world.
Earlier this month, Cornyn and some of his colleagues sent a letter to the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees on State and Foreign Operations.
The name alone should tell us that they’re digging deep into the bottom of the barrel.
The House and Senate appropriations subcommittees on State and Foreign Operations.
Sounds really important.
If the subcommittee helps us by withholding money from Mexico (fat chance), forcing our neighbor to abide by the treaty, how much money would that be worth?
Less than $10 million, according to the D.C. group.
Oh, that’ll really scare Mexico, all right. Less than $10 million, cut from the several hundred million we send them per year in one form or another.
All Talk; No Action
In his letter to State, Cornyn was joined by his buddy in the U.S. Senate, Ted Cruz, and House Members from the Rio Grande Valley — Monica De La Cruz, R-McAllen, Vicente Gonzalez, D-Brownsville, and Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.
In addition, the group of politicos looking for water included five more Republicans from across the state. Given how much trade money comes to the feds courtesy of the RGV’s ports of entry, the work we do down here in both the areas of development and care for the poor, you’d think all the GOP reps in D.C. would put more import on our current water situation, but alas, they have more important things to do either in D.C. or back in their home district.
Happy Hour at 5. Make it 4. Screw work.
Why is Cornyn’s letter worth less than the time it took for some office temp to compose it (most of the elected politicians can’t actually write their own correspondence in any literate fashion, so they require help)?
Because if you look at the water Mexico currently has in its water reservoirs, which feed Amistad and Falcon, there isn’t enough water to pay up on its treaty debt, even if we could somehow force them to do so.
Oh, we have the power. Just not the will. Nor has the U.S. State Department ever had it, and that includes multiple presidents and their administrations, multiple secretaries of State. In the vernacular, no one seems to give a …
Someone told me last week, Mexico has the water.
No, they don’t. The Advance gets a weekly report from local water guru Sonny Hinojosa each week, which shows a whole lot of things, including how much water is in the Mexican reservoirs this week. Not enough to help us now.
Next week, God willing, I’ll take up an entire page and publish the water graphs from this week, which proves the fact — Mexico doesn’t currently have the water it owes us.
Cornyn could give Mexico a billion dollars tomorrow, and it wouldn’t help force them to pay us the water it owes us during the current five-year water cycle, which ends Oct. 25, 2025.
Why? Because again, Mexico is hurting when it comes to water. Like us, it’s suffering through a severe drought.
Two years ago, October 2022, thanks to a weather “event,” as it’s called when it’s not a tropical storm or a hurricane, Mexico had water overflowing its reservoirs. Close to three times its current water levels.
That was the time for Cornyn and company to act. When something could actually be done to force Mexico to pump water into Amistad and Falcon, per the 1944 water treaty to which they agreed.
What were they all doing then? Cornyn and company, including Democrats?
Asleep at the wheel, as is so often the case. Checking out the new office intern, having lunch with campaign donors. What?
What’s been done to this area by the people in charge, over the past several decades, decide for yourselves who they are, is almost criminal if you’re into hyperbole.
Almost 26 years ago, I was sitting in the McAllen City Commission room. Back then, the county’s population was approximately half of what it is today, according to the U.S. Census — 500,000 vs. 1 million. Give or take. Across the river, in and around Reynosa, there are now basically the same number of people — a million.
In 1998, around the middle of October, the water levels in Falcon and Amistad hit a record low of 19.06. People were rightly concerned, which is why McAllen’s PUB had called a special board meeting. I think Mike Blum was its president then.
That year, a hurricane or tropical storm bailed us out.
Still, you would have thought that our brave elected officials might have said, wow, we dodged a bullet, so what can we do now to makes sure this never happens again?
They didn’t do that, though.
Sure, water levels at Falcon and Amistad always rise and dip, but nothing like it is now. It’s close to the 20-percent mark, and people in the know, looking at this summer’s forecast, say it will soon be near the 19-percent number again.
So what’s changed between now and 1998 with regard to water supply? Despite the fact that the population doubled?
Not a damn thing.
In D.C., when it comes to remedies for the RGV’s water problems with Mexico (they never abide by the treaty, and we never force them to), it’s back to water policy — let’s pray for another hurricane.
Yeah, but people die in one.
Okay, how about a simple tropical storm to fill up the water reservoirs?
People die in them too, and unless Mexico really gets slammed with water, they won’t pay up, which proved to be the case in October 2022.
The failures in D.C. are many, but this one takes the cake.
Cornyn and his letter, supported by his colleagues, is a waste of time.
Meanwhile, too many people across this region, in my humble opinion, are still acting as if there’s no water problem.
The number of municipalities across Hidalgo County that have enacted water-use restrictions is low in terms of percentage. Well below 50 percent. And even if they did enact new restrictions, they’d all have to do it, or else the cities without any restrictions would use that to their advantage as they courted would-be commercial developers.
Enough with the rant. Too depressing and maddening.