P A 680PGA: POLICY RESEARCH PROJECT
Subtitle 1: ‘US-Mexico Salinity Plans’
Negotiations On Water Quality Management in the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin
Fall 2024 – unique xxxxx
Spring 2025 – unique xxxxx
Subtitle 2: Meadows Fellows Project
Course Number PA680PGA (unique #: xxxxx)
Texas Global project code number (for student application for scholarship funds): 350401
Day & Time Tuesdays, 6 to 9 pm
Zoom access code: to be determined
Security code: to be determined
Faculty David Eaton
LBJ School of Public Affairs
Office/Phone SRH 3.342; telephone: 512-471-8972; cell: 512-626-0333
E-mail eaton@austin.utexas.edu
Office Hours Tuesdays, 2pm-5pm, via phone. Please call 512-626-0333
Faculty Support Crystal Arteaga
Office/Phone SRH 3.346; telephone: 512-232-4292
E-mail crystal.arteaga@austin.utexas.edu
COURSE DESCRIPTION
‘US-Mexico Salinity Plans’
Negotiations On Water Quality Management in the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin
Fall 2024 – unique xxxxx
Subtitle 2: Meadows Fellows Project
---------------------------------------------
Logistics
Meets: Tuesdays, 6-9PM, classroom SRH 3.xxx
Instructor: David Eaton
Clients: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and CONAGUA, Mexico’s federal water agency. Other clients include the US. Environmental Protection Agency, the International Boundary and Water Commission, the Comisión Internacional de Limits y Aguas, the Rio Bravo River Basin Council, and Tamaulipas’ state water agency, Comisión Estatal del Agua de Tamaulipas.
Zoom access: Main Zoom access number: xxxxxxxx
Security code: xxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------
Course Summary
The purpose of this Fall 2024 class to to assist the US and Mexican Gpvernments in negotiations regarding how to control and prevent salts from entering the lower freshwater Rio Grande/Rio Bravo (LRG/RB) river between the Falcon Reservoir and the Gulf Coats. The class also will evaluate options for water management, existing facility operational improvements, and construction of new infrastructure to prfevent salinization and remove salts.
This class is a joint activity of faculty, staff and students of the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Engineering School of Mexico City’s UNAM (la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). This project is supported financially by:
* two bi-national agencies [the International Boundary and Water Commission (US) and la Comisión Internacional de Limits y Aguas(Mexico)];
* two national agencies (the US Environmental Protection Agency (US) and Mexico’s Comisión Nacional del Agua (CONAGUA) with Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), including its regional water planning unit the Rio Bravo River Basin Council]; and
* two state envoironmental agencies, Texas’ Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and Tamaulipas, Mexico’s Comisión Estatal del Agua de Tamaulipas.
Background
During 2023-2024 academic year, a LBJ School class developed methods to identify the sources and consequences of salinization of the LRG/RB. These methods include geograohical information systems (ARC-INFO), water quality mass balance assessments (using OASIS software), modelling of groundwater flows, rainfall, evapo-transpiration, and economic assessment of the impacts of salimity on domestic users and irrigators in the LRG/RB.
The 2023-34 analyses have identified a variety of policy options including infrastructure construction, water/wastewater treatment, facility operation improvements, and pollution prevention. Both Mexico and the US Gpvernments wish to move forward to recommend policy options for action. The two Governments have funded the LBJ School and UNAM to evaluate options. Members of this class will have an opportunity to develop in more detail and inform representative of the two Governments about those options and facilitate negotiations by provding technical support to the six participating agencies. Members of the staff of Texas’ Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) assist in these efforts., TCEQ is located at 12100 Park 35 Circle in Austin. TCEQ is the fourth largest environmental agency in the United States and employs approximately 2,780 employees, has 69 regional offices, and a $378 million operating budget for the 2021 fiscal year.
One of the most productive elements of US-Mexican relations in 2024 is trans-boundary environmental quality, particularly between Texas and its four bordering Mexican states: Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. The two nations have worked together effectively for decades since the North American Free Trade Agreement to reduce air, water, solid and hazardous waste pollution, improve the border air and water quality, and address (but by no means resolve) water quantity and access conflicts. One of the reasons for the success in reducing pollution and improving ambient environmental quality along the Texas-Mexico border is the close cooperation between Texas and its Mexican border states through initiatives such as Border 2000, Border 2012, Border 2020 and now Border 2025. Texas has taken an institutional lead for two regional cooperative groups, the so-called four-state process (Texas, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Coahuila) and three-state process (Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua).
The Lower Rio Grande/Rio Bravo (LRG/RB) is experiencing increasing salinity, which affects millions of people living in the Texas/Tamaulipas region who rely on the LRG/RB for domestic, commercial and industrial water use, as well as irrigation. Increasing salinity in the LRG/RB harms agricultural production, which is the major source of income on both the Mexican and the U.S. sides of the river.
Students in a 2023-2024 LBJ School class developed a mass balance model of LRG/RB salinity based on the best available data for both conductance data (from the TCEQ) and flow data (from the US Geological Survey [USGS] and the IBWC from gauges they monitor along the Rio Grande). Students collected data from both salinity and flow data from LRG/RB locations, as well as information on groundwater flows, rainfall, devapo-transpiration, flows in tributaries, agricultural return flows, water withdrawals along the river, and non-point source pollution. Theese data were used to characterize salinity issues, by quantifying how much the salt load increased or decreased at various sites along the LRG/RB relative to a location upstream. The salinity mass balance enables users to estimate how external sources/sinks influence the increase or decrease in the salt load in the LRG/RB and also allows users to prospose interventions and calculate the imoact of policies on salinity levels.
Students enrolled in the class are eligible to travel to Mexico during the academic year and f unding is available in Summer 2025 through the Global Career Launch-Mexico program of Texas Global and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies to support students who wish to provide research and consulting services to Mexican governmental agencies along the border and in Mexico City. Supplemental funding sources include research contracts at UT, International Student Fee Scholarships, Curtis W. Meadows, Jr. Social Enterprise Fellows, Crook Fellowships, LBJ School-based support for internships, or from other sources, including scholarships and fellowships. Some useful websites include:
* https://global.utexas.edu/abroad/funding/scholarships
* https://www.scholarshiptab.com/scholarships/university-of-texas-at-aust…
* http://utdirect.utexas.edu/student/abroad/globalassist.WBX
* https://onestop.utexas.edu/managing-costs/scholarships-financial-aid/
LBJ School students are eligible to apply for funds to support unpaid summer internships following policies promulgated for Summer 2024, as indicated in a website prepared for Summer 2020 at: *https://lbj.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/LBJ_School_Internship_Policies_for_Summer_2020.pdf. Students also are eligible to raise funds through a so-called ‘HornRaiser’ process; see
* https://hornraiser.utexas.edu/about
Prior student reports have addressed the following topics:
* Analysis of pollutant loads;
* Sources of original pof total dissolved solids;
* Evaluation of existing reports and data on salinity the LRG/RB Basin;
* Discussion of piont source pollutants;
* Quantification of irrigation return flows;
* Estimation of nonpoint source pollution (other than irrigation return flows);
* Identification of other potential salinity sources;
* Estimation of the economic impacts of elevated salinity; and
* Assessment of links between salinity and water quantity.
Class Deliverables
The class will develop a series of technical and management options to prevent or control salinity so as to reduce salinity within the LRG/RB Basin. These options will include:
* Management strategies to prevent, control or remove salinization of the LRG/RB;
* Operational infrastructure imrovements to prevent, control or remove salinization of the LRG/RB; and
* Infrastructure investments which can prevent, control, or remove salt from the LRG/RB.
Class members will work with UT-Austin and UNAM staff and faculty develop a software-based ‘game’ to allow interested users to test out different salinity management options and quantify the conseqences.
Class members will work with UT-Austin and UNAM faculty and staff to enable the six UDS and Mexican Government agency staff to test the consequences of different policy choices to control salinity and manage water quality and quantity within the LRG/RB.
Class memberts will report the estimates of consequences of policy options to enable the US and Mexican Government agencies to select actions they wish to implement.