When President Barack Obama travels to Mexico on Thursday to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto there will be a laundry list of issues to tackle. And Texas Governor Rick Perry wants to Obama to push hard on one sensitive issue critical to the border state.
With the drug war, immigration and free trade the Obama/Peña Nieto meeting is already agenda heavy, but Texas is asking the leaders to not forget water.
In a letter Perry urged Obama and the U.S. State Department to pressure Mexico to comply with a 1944 binational treaty where Mexico agreed to supply the Rio Grande with water from its tributaries.
Perry blamed Obama for not pushing Mexico hard enough already on the issue and he said that without Mexico’s share of water, the Rio Grande will continue to suffer.
The ongoing drought has Texas farmers who depend on the irrigation from the Rio Grande expecting the worst this summer. Some water districts have already stopped taking water orders due to the river’s low level.
