11th Meeting of the IBWC Follow-up Group
April 27, 2022
Institutional Context
The International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) was established in 1889, and has responsibility for applying the boundary and water treaties between the United States and Mexico, and settling differences that may arise in their application. The IBWC is an international body composed of the United States Section and the Mexican Section, each headed by an Engineer-Commissioner appointed by his/her respective president. Each Section is administered independently of the other. The United States Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (USIBWC) is a federal government agency and is headquartered in El Paso, Texas. The IBWC operates under the foreign policy guidance of the Department of State. The Mexican Section is under the administrative supervision of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is headquartered in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
11th Meeting of the Follow-up Group*
On April 27th, the 11th Binational Meeting of the IBWC Follow-up Group was held at the headquarters of the Mexican Foreign Ministry. During the meeting officials discussed urgent measures for water conservation in the Colorado River basin, which has been affected by a drought for 20 years and is currently at worrying levels of runoff and storage. The Mexican officials presented the current situation after the implementation of the first packages of conservation projects of Act 323, which consists of developing projects and improvements to the existing infrastructure on the Mexican side of the border to achieve significant savings in water volumes; which can essentially be used in environmental projects.
The projects that stand out are: control structures, automated gates, automated telemetry, canal piping, implementation of gravity-fed micro-irrigation technologies and canal lining, mainly. The financing for these projects is considered within the agreement, which ensures a budget of 32.5 million dollars that the United States would contribute, in addition to other financing from government entities and private organizations of both countries.
The Mexican delegation was co-chaired by Roberto Velasco, Chief Officer for North America; German Martínez Santoyo, General Director of the National Water Commission; and by Adriana Reséndez, Mexican Commissioner of the IBWC. The U.S. delegation included the participation of Tanya Trujillo, US Undersecretary of the Interior; and Maria Elena-Giner, American Commissioner of the IBWC.
