Paso del Norte Water Task Force:
A Regional Initiative representing Chihuahua, New Mexico and Texas
The Paso del Norte is home to
some of the fastest growing desert communities in the world. Over two
million people live in this border region, which includes two counties in
Southern New Mexico, two counties in west Texas, and two municipios
in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The major cities are El Paso, Texas,
Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and Las Cruces, New Mexico. They all depend on
shared river and ground water.
Water management is complex:
Rio Grande waters are controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the
State of New Mexico (Elephant Butte Reservoir and Rio Grande project), the
State of Texas (Rio Grande from El Paso to Fort Quitman, TX), the Comisión Nacional de Agua
(Rio Bravo down stream from Juárez), and the International Boundary and
Water Commission (IBWC), which is the bi-national agency that oversees surface
water resources on the border between Mexico and the United States. Ground
water is managed differently: in New Mexico by the Office of the State
Engineer, in Texas by individual landowners, and in Mexico by the federal
government.
Population in the Paso del
Norte is projected to reach 4 million by 2020. Existing surface water
resources of the Rio Grande are already nearly fully utilized and existing
groundwater resources are being depleted rapidly. Development of
alternative water sources will require costly infrastructure expenditures.
This places the issue of water availability and growth at the heart of
regional development: Will there be enough water, of acceptable quality, to
support cities, agriculture and industry in 2020 and beyond? What are the
most urgent water issues the region faces and how might they be solved?
With continued rapid growth, prudent water management in the Paso del Norte,
before long, will need to be organized on a regional scale with equal input
from Mexico, Texas and New Mexico. Until recently, institutional capacity
for this task did not exist.
The Hewlett Initiative.
In 1998, New Mexico State University, Universidad
Autónoma de Cd. Juárez and the Houston Advanced Research Center
received initial support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to
develop a program to fill this institutional gap. A team from the three
institutions (José Garcia, Oscar Ibañez and Jurgen Schmandt) explored two
strategies top-down and bottom-up.
Organizing Principles.
Consultations with regional
leaders resulted in broad agreement on five principles that would shape the
Paso del Norte Water Task Force:
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Governance: Leadership of the Task Force should be entrusted to
community leaders.
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Stakeholders: Other Task Force members should include city
water utilities, irrigation districts, water users and experts.
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Equal representation: There should be equal membership from
Chihuahua, New Mexico, and Texas.
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Support Team: The Task Force should receive ongoing staff
support from local and regional research organizations.
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Outreach: Task Force proposals and recommendations should be
submitted for community input before being finalized.
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Policy recommendations: Task Force recommendations should
bring together community priorities and the best available scientific
evidence.
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Interviews with Paso del
Norte water officials, community leaders and experts also led to the
recommendation to keep the Task Force small. State-level and other regional
water agencies, while not members of the Task Force, would be briefed once
action recommendations had been developed. Because of their broad
bi-national mandate, it was also agreed to seek the participation of the
Mexican and U.S. Commissioners of the IBWC/CILA in launching the initiative.
Task Force Organization
On April 5, 1999 the
Commissioners of IBWC and CILA convened the first meeting of the Paso del
Norte Water Task Force. The Water Task Force constituted itself as a
non-governmental forum for the purposes of conducting joint studies,
organizing outreach activities, and preparing policy recommendations.
The Task Force is organized
in the following way:
- The Task Force meets four times a year to decide on
projects and develop action recommendations. Three co-chairs from
Chihuahua, New Mexico and Texas each serve six-month terms.
- The Hewlett Oversight Team coordinates Task Force
activities with related projects sponsored under the various Hewlett
Foundation grants. The projects encourage region-building in the Paso del
Norte across political boundaries.
- The Support Team prepares Task Force meetings and
Water Forum events, provides technical support to the Task Force and
organizes interaction with the regional community and water agencies.
- The Paso del Norte Water Forum is an informal group
convened to discuss water issues and draft Task Force recommendations.
Forum events are open to interested parties in the Paso del Norte. They
take the form of workshops or conferences. Forum meetings are convened as
needed.
