Water Dispute Officials in Washington and Mexico City are currently sparring over a water dispute in the valley. Mexico has withheld more than 450 billion gallons in the past seven years that it was supposed to give to the United States through controlled releases from a series of dams and reservoirs under a 1944 treaty splitting up the waters of the Rio Grande. Mexico argues that a drought has made it impossible to deliver the water, but the Americans contend that Mexico is simply withholding it to provide for its own fast-growing industry. Profits from his family farm have been cut almost in half in the last five years, and neighbors have gone out of business. The farmers say the U.S. government has not pressed Mexico aggressively enough on the water issue.
People here are upset.
Well, tomorrow's here and we've got to do something now. Twenty miles due south across the Rio Grande, farmer Javier Hinojosa of Rio Bravo, Mexico, looks out at his 220-acre farm in the parched flatlands. His Rancho Santa Maria is a dusty, crumbling mess. His aging tractors are rusting in the yard because Hinojosa cannot afford to maintain them. Yet only a few miles away sit gleaming new maquiladoras owned by Panasonic and Sony and other big international corporations.