Farmers to sue Mexico over water

El Paso Times, AP ^ | August 28, 2004 | Jim Vertuno

[FITZ]

AUSTIN -- Fed up with diplomatic efforts to enforce a 60-year-old water treaty, a group of Rio Grande Valley irrigators and farmers announced Friday that they are seeking up to $500 million in damages from the Mexican government.

Seventeen irrigation districts, a water supply company and 29 individual farmers sent notice to Mexican officials of their claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed by the United States, Canada and Mexico. It took effect in 1994.

"We want to be a good neighbor to those people. It's hard to do when you're losing money," said Hidalgo County citrus farmer Jimmie Steidinger, who estimates he's lost about $200,000 over the past decade and can't farm all his land because of a lack of water.

The 1944 water-sharing treaty requires Mexico to send the United States an average of 350,000 acre-feet of water annually from six Rio Grande tributaries. The United States in return must send Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet from the Colorado River.

An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, enough water to flood an acre of land a foot deep.

Mexico has owed water for the past decade. By the summer of 2002, Rio Grande farmers were going out of business, and municipal water stores were running low while Mexican produce flowed into the state.

Texas and federal officials pressed the Bush administration to make the debt a national priority.

While Mexico agreed to several partial payments and has reduced some of its water debt, those taking the legal action think the government hasn't pushed enough.

The farmers want up to $500 million for damages of lost crops and sales incurred from 1992 to 2002. The claim was calculated by a Texas A&M University economist.

"I've seen the abandoned fields and the reduced crop yields," said Jo Jo White, a spokesman for the farmers and water districts.

"This was man-made," he said. "Not an act of mother nature."

Lawyers for the group have sent paperwork to Mexican officials, giving them 90 days to pay the claim or submit to binding arbitration. Mexican officials said they had not seen the documents and declined to comment.

Abundant rains in 2003 and 2004 largely replenished South Texas' two Rio Grande reservoirs and allowed Mexico to reduce its water debt from 1.5 million acre-feet to less than 800,000 acre-feet.

Nancie Marzulla, a Washington attorney representing the Rio Grande Valley water interests, said the claim falls under a NAFTA provision requiring countries to compensate for taken property and forbidding discriminatory treatment of foreign investors.

[FITZ]

This has been going on too long.