Cities in northern Baja California depend on Mexicali farmers’ rights to use Colorado River water. The Mexican government just wrested control of that water, sparking protests and blockades by farmers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
By and Mackenzie Elmer, Voice of San Diego
If Mexicali farmers can’t cut a deal with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration, the city of Tijuana’s at risk of losing its water supply from the Colorado River.
For generations, these farmers – known as Irrigation District 14 – sold river water the Mexican government ceded to them for agricultural production to coastal cities like Tijuana and Ensenada. The Colorado River flows through Mexicali, but because of this deal, it’s diverted over 100 miles the coast via an aqueduct.
But Mexico’s president has taken a hard stance on how the country’s constitution defines ownership of water: It belongs to the nation and cannot be privatized. Sheinbaum proposed sweeping changes to Mexico’s national water law to prohibit water from being bought and sold in what she called “black markets,” effectively eliminating exchanges like the one between Mexicali and Tijuana.
“It can’t be that there are municipalities without water and irrigation districts with more than enough. Then the irrigation districts sell water to the municipalities when they don’t pay for it. That can’t be,” Sheinbaum said earlier this month during a press conference.
Even though water like that from the Colorado River is constitutionally public, over the years different presidents agreed to concede rights to water to various private parties, industries and farmers, like Irrigation District 14. That changed when Mexico’s Congress approved Sheinbaum’s reforms earlier this month.
But after mounting pressure and demonstrations from farmers, Congress agreed to allow farmers to hold onto their water rights. The catch is: Any water farmers don’t use for agricultural purposes becomes property of the federal government.
Farmers still weren’t happy. Many Mexicali farmers say they don’t actually use their water to farm anymore because it hasn’t been profitable. They make their living instead by selling their water to Baja California’s urban centers, which is an arrangement the Mexican government once encouraged as a solution to the growing coastal demand for water.
The farmers at the center of this conflict aren’t getting rich off the water exchanges, said Alfonso Cortes Lara, a researcher from El Colegio de La Frontera Norte, who has been advising District 14 farmers throughout the negotiations.
“These are people with critical health issues, in poverty, disabilities and senior citizens,” Cortes Lara said.
Now, some have threatened to start putting their fields back into production in protest, effectively choking off critical drinking water supplies to the northern Mexican state.
Tijuana’s population, development and water demand is exploding. The city doesn’t always have enough water to supply its population. Whole neighborhoods experience days-long water shutoffs often blamed by the state government on aging water infrastructure of pipe breaks. Any delay in supply could further destabilize the growing metropolis as well as cities down the coast that also depend on the Colorado River, like Ensenada.
“This (law) has the potential to increase the leverage of cities (over farmers),” said Oscar Ocampo, an economist at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness based in Mexico City.
Mexicali farmers protested throughout the law’s passage by parking trucks and semis across highways at the U.S.-Mexico border, preventing goods from crossing into Calexico. They are again threatening to mobilize with others across the country and initiate larger demonstrations at the border as talks continue this week.
Horacio Gómez, who represents 17,000 people with water concessions under Irrigation District 14 in Mexicali, said farmers were already struggling to work with Sheinbaum’s government on establishing fair prices for their goods.The change to the water law just added fuel to the fire.
“If the government doesn’t comply with the proposed agreements…we’ll protest and start another road blockade. It’s no longer just a water issue,” Gómez told tijuanapress.com in an interview. “Definitely we’ll not risk (losing) our water rights,” Gómez.
Mexico’s Water Wars with the US
Shortly after the law’s passage, Mexico struck a deal with the United States settling a dispute over water Mexican farmers owed Texas farmers from the Rio Grande. President Donald Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, earlier this month and vowed to impose additional tariffs on Mexico if “water isn’t released, IMMEDIATELY.”
Sheinbaum insists the new law is all about trying to guarantee water as a human right. But observers of the situation say Sheinbaum’s move to take over water concessions in the country is likely tied to these disputes over border rivers like the Rio Grande and Colorado River.
Ocampo said the new changes will force the agricultural sector to measure its water consumption and report it to the federal government. But enforcement of the new law will likely fail because the federal government doesn’t have enforcement mechanisms in place or the budget to verify measurements and monitor water transfers.
“Of course there is over exploitation of aquifers and water theft,” Ocampo said. “Those key issues are not really being addressed in this reform because its main objective is to prohibit transmission of water between private (parties).”
Negotiations between farmers, Sheinbaum’s administration and the Baja California state government over whether farmers should be compensated for their water are ongoing.
