LaredoBuzz.Com

Courtesy Eloy Vega,

Mayor Salinas will push for others to join in effort to prevent “right of capture” from taking water upriver from the Rio Grande watershed

 Laredo, TX—“Water is life.  No one is going to cut our lifeline or take away our natural resources, not from us, or anyone else along the border,” stated City of Laredo Mayor Raul G. Salinas emphatically.  These strong words are in response to Clayton Williams, Jr.’s Fort Stockton Holdings application to the Middle Pecos County Groundwater Conservation District to  extract 41 million gallons of water a day, or about 15 billion gallons of water per year – for the next 30 years, out of the Rio Grande watershed.  His plan?  To sell it to Midland, Texas, possibly leaving Laredo, and other communities downstream from him, high and dry.

 Mayor Salinas and the Rio Grande International Study Center (RGISC) are adamantly opposed to this idea, and are quite certain there are others who feel the way they do.

 Aside from proposing a resolution be passed by the Laredo City Council at their next City Council meeting in May, Salinas is initiating a major letter-writing campaign to all local, state and federal elected officials on both the U.S. and Mexican side of the border, urging them to join them in this fight to prevent this from happening.  The resolution will mirror one already passed by the City of Fort Stockton, who will be directly impacted by Williams’ plan.

 Williams has submitted an application to the Middle Pecos County Groundwater Conservation District, in the City of Fort Stockton, which would take the proposed water from underground water, not directly from the Rio Grande.  However, environmentalists, such as Jay Johnson-Castro, executive director of the RGISC and engineers, like Tomás Rodriguez, City of Laredo Utilities Director, believe that ground water, especially within the Rio Grande watershed, does eventually filter back into the mighty river, and therefore, any extraction from the underground water in this area is essentially the same as taking it directly from the Rio Grande.   

 “Laredo is one of the fastest growing communities on the border,” said Salinas.  “Diverting water away from the Rio Grande watershed poses a threat for residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural sustainability and growth for our city.  We cannot allow this to happen,” he added.

 According to Johnson-Castro, this action must be prevented from taking place. The mission of the RGISC is to preserve, protect and foster respect for the river, its watershed, environment and cultures, through research, education and bi-national stewardship and alliances with individuals, agencies and organizations.  He hopes that enough opposition to this application will stop the request in its track, and then an adequate hydrological study would be performed to reveal what impact such a diversion away from the international watershed would have. 

 “Our concern is that there is an insufficient science that should show the impact on the natural hydrological cycle of the Rio Grande watershed, on which millions of citizens on both sides of the river depend on,” said Johnson-Castro.  He points to the 1944 Treaty with Mexico, which states that the waters of Fort Stockton and Pecos County, Texas are within the geographical boundaries of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC). 

 “Never before has a massive amount of water been extracted and transferred out of the watershed and IBWC boundaries.  This is a precedent-setting case.  How would this impact the spirit and intent of the 1944 treaty?” he asks.

 The RGISC has already been studying the devastating effects of the drought that has plagued much of Texas, a drought that has led the Rio Grande to dry up before it reaches the Gulf. 

 The City of Fort Stockton, a small community of about 7,500, has already had one of its water sources dry up, thanks to Williams’ family business.  A natural springs that is found in Pecos County, the Comanche Springs, is dried up most of the year due to high impact pumping of the aquifer for irrigation by Williams.  It was, in fact, his father and their pumping that led to the creation of the “right of capture” law in the first place.

 “We will fight.  We will not allow our water, and our children’s water, to be captured from all of us who need the water from the Rio Grande, just for the profit of one man,” concluded Salinas.