Texas-Mexico water war continues

Texas farmers to ask Canadian judge to impose sanctions on Mexico for taking Rio Grande water
February 6, 2008
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

WESLACO, Texas---- More than 40 Texas farmers, ranchers and irrigation districts are gearing up to take their long-standing water war with Mexico to the next level, which in this case is a Canadian judge.

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs came to the Rio Grande Valley for a pep talk Tuesday, to reinvigorate farmers who have been fighting for three years and running up legal bills of almost $500,000.

''You roll over now and you won't be in good shape,'' Combs told a room full of farmers and ranchers.

In 2004, the farmers and ranchers sued Mexico for $500 million, arguing that their southern neighbor had shorted them on Rio Grande water from 1992 to 2002 in violation of a 1944 treaty.

In June, a tribunal operating under the North American Free Trade Agreement decided it did not have jurisdiction, stalling the case before it got started.

Most frustrating to the landowners was that the U.S. State Department intervened at the last moment and sided with Mexico.