U.S. has received 5 years' worth of water from Mexico

MERCEDES - Because of heavy rains that fell upstream of the Rio Grande in September, the region's reservoirs have more than enough water, and the United States has received five years' worth of water from Mexico, officials said Wednesday.

Officials from the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, the binational entity that oversees water reservoirs and levees on the U.S.-Mexico border, reported that Amistad Dam in Del Rio and Falcon Dam, northwest of Roma, are nearly at "conservation capacity."

Usually, once the reservoirs rise above that level, water is released further downstream, but the swollen Rio Grande can't handle those releases right now, said Patrick Daize, area operations manager for the IBWC office in Mercedes.

"We only have controlled releases when the river can take it," Daize said.

Daize and other officials spoke at a meeting of IBWC's citizens' forum in Mercedes on Wednesday.

After northern Mexico received torrential rains in September, the country released water from a reservoir that then flowed into the Rio Grande, flooding parts of West Texas. That water eventually traveled downstream to Amistad and Falcon and into the river's lower reaches, causing the river here to rapidly rise in October.

Some portions of the Rio Grande here approached flood stage earlier this month, according to the National Weather Service. In San Benito, the river reached 51 feet in mid-October, 4 feet below flood stage. In Brownsville, the river crested to 22.5 feet, just a few feet short of flooding, meteorologist Mike Castillo confirmed.

River levels are dropping and are now well below flood stage, but couldn't handle much additional water, so that water will stay in storage for now, IBWC officials confirmed.

The heavy rains, interestingly, have allowed Mexico to buck a longstanding trend. Under a 1944 U.S.-Mexico treaty, Mexico must deliver 350,000 acre feet of water a year, in five-year cycles, to U.S. reservoirs. After the massive downpours, though, Mexico was able to deliver more than 788,000 acre feet in one year, putting them ahead and resetting the five-year cycle, Daize said.

"They've already fulfilled their obligation," he said.

An acre foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre, one foot deep, and provides enough water for two households for a year.

In the past, Mexico has frequently fallen behind on its water releases. At one point, the Mexican government owed the U.S. more than 2.5 million acre feet - enough water for 5 million households.