by liberal japonicus
We’ve got some folks who have some knowledge of water issues, so this Texas Monthly piece, entitled War for the Rio Grande, (via LGM) may be of interest. Why do I think this will all hit the fan as Texas turns blue?
The piece talks about “Day Zero”, which is when a locale runs out of drinking water. My wife and I are currently having an ersatz Day Zero experience, the tap for our bath has broken, so we have to shut the water off at main valve. About twice a day, we turn it on, and while my wife washes dishes, I fill up some buckets in the bath, which we then use to flush the toilet, and then turn it off. We will have some plumbers repair it, but it will take about a month till they can get to it as there is a ton of work already booked as well as a shortage of fixtures and fittings in the south part of Kumamoto city because of the recent earthquake. We go to a local sento every evening for a bath. If I were a conservative, I might opine how it’s not too bad, I can handle it, but as a liberal, I’m thinking that even this slight speed bump in our routines, while a mere inconvenience on an individual level, would be pure hell if ramped up to a neighborhood, city or larger area.
Kumamoto is quite fortunate because all of its water relies entirely on underground aquifers, and it enjoys volcanic filitration of the rainwater which falls on Mt. Aso. On the other hand, Fukuoka, the city west of Kumamoto and the largest (and fastest growing) city in Kyushu, is having problems with water supply (it is on a coastal plain with no large rivers or natural aquifers), so they are aggressively exploring desalination, and a lot of conservation efforts.
If the Texas Monthly article is TL;DR.
“Jack Herrera’s September 2026 Texas Monthly interactive, “The War for the Rio Grande” (also titled “The Rio Grande Water Crisis Is Unprecedented in American History”), is a long, chaptered narrative investigation supported by the Pulitzer Center. Photographer Jordan Vonderhaar accompanied Herrera on a roughly 1,900-mile trip from the Colorado headwaters to the Gulf. The piece mixes on-the-ground reporting, personal stories, treaty history, and crisis framing.
“The core argument is that the Rio Grande has been split into two rivers by human use: the upper river dies after El Paso (the “Forgotten Reach”), and the lower river depends on Mexican tributaries, especially the Conchos. Overuse (about 87% agriculture), a multi-decade megadrought, a 1944 treaty that locks in fixed volumes rather than shares of available water, and political conflict have produced an emergency that could leave millions without tap water as early as the following year and could escalate into international confrontation.
“That diagnosis of a badly overallocated, drying basin is largely right. Several of the most dramatic claims are not.”
Texas Monthly: Rio Grande Water Wars Analysis
My only experience with Rio Grande water problems is the long series of cases involving the upper river where New Mexico sues Colorado, or Texas sues New Mexico and Colorado. In the most recent case, the states reached an agreement earlier this year and the Supreme Court blessed it**. As I read the agreement, it will eventually require some fairly drastic changes in western water law.
The change is focused on the question, “Does pumping water from an underground aquifer that is hydrologically linked to a surface river count as a diversion from that river?” The engineering answer has always been yes, with a multiplier between zero and one (possibly varying from year to year). The legal answer has always been no. In the Texas/New Mexico part of the settlement — Texas added Colorado to the case just on principle, we’re not really involved — the Supreme Court accepted the engineering answer.
The first place that change will be tested is the latest case between Nebraska and Colorado over the South Platte River***. In the most recent filing, Colorado has accused Nebraska of drilling wells strategically placed to divert water from the river flow in Colorado, in violation of the compact.
** Cases involving interstate compacts are among the small number of things where the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction: they’re the trial court. The SCOTUS hates being a trial court and almost always appoints a Special Master to take care of grungy details like actual testimony.
*** Colorado is signatory to nine different interstate river compacts. Some other state is always suing us.
I admit to being astounded that the Supreme Court would make a decision that is so . . . sensible.
But prehaps this reflects the fact that the Justices are all from the Eastern part of the country. (Gorsuch was born in Denver, but moved to Maryland at age 10; Barrett grew up along the east side of the Mississippi. Everybody else is from east of the Appalachians.) So they just have no feel for western water wars. Let alone the politics of it. In this case, cluelessness may be a blessing.