Drought watch: meanwhile, further south on the Rio Grande

While we wrestle at the Texas-New Mexico-Chihuaha border about how much water New Mexico is delivering down the Rio Grande to our neighbors to the south, our neighbors to the south are also arguing. From Julián Aguilar at the Texas Tribune:

The Treaty of Feb. 3, 1944 — also called the “Treaty of the Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande” — directs Mexico to deliver water to the U.S. from six tributaries that feed into the Rio Grande, in exchange for water from the Colorado River. The Mexican government is required to release 1,750,000 acre-feet of water every five years. (An acre-foot is nearly 326,000 gallons of water.)

Ideally for the U.S., Mexico would deliver an average annual amount of 350,000 acre-feet, but lawmakers say it is more than 350,000 acre-feet behind such a pace in the current five-year cycle, which began in October 2010. In the middle of a continued drought, the lag in delivery has prompted U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to ask the U.S. office of the International Boundary and Water Commission, a binational agency responsible for enforcing water and boundary treaties, to urge the Mexicans to fulfill their debt.