Because there are droughts in various parts of the United States, it may not seem unusual that farmers in the Texas Rio Grande Valley are in great need of water to continue their family businesses, but those businesses might disappear if water from an 80-year-old international treaty doesn't come through.
The US and Mexico signed the treaty in 1944, requiring Mexico to release a large amount of water -- 1,750,000 acre-feet -- every five years to the United States, but in the past few years Mexico has gotten far behind.
Now Mexico is in arrears, owing the U.S. and Texas about 1,300,000-acre-feet, which is due by the end of October of next year.
Mexico has made a couple of deals over the treaty, delivering a much smaller amount than specified in the treaty and therefore much less than Texas farmers need, but that's where Texas regulators come into the picture, telling the farmers that, because the treaty is being satisfied to some extent, those farmers need to pay for the water or it could risk depriving other parts of the state of the water they'll need in the near future.
Without the water agreed to in the 80-year-old agreement between the two nations, the situation is turning desperate, Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gary Joiner tells Newsradio 740 KTRH.
"Texas agriculture in the lower Rio Grande Valley is going to disappear without water from the treaty obligations.
"Communities in the [Rio Grande] area are going to be going without some water resources because of Mexico' inclination to not provide what's promised, so something needs to be done."
And that's why the need is so great that after many years of mismanagement of the treaty by previous US and Mexican administrations, it's time for the incoming Trump White House to use whatever leverage necessary to bring Mexico into compliance.
"This is not a new situation for the current administration or even the past three or four administrations, they've all been dealing with this 1944 water treaty."
As he has in the past, Joiner says so much of what will happen to this vital water resource falls into the hands of the upcoming Trump administration, and it may a kind of last hope before some farms start to fail.
"I think what's needed, hopefully when the new Trump administration comes in, is some new focus, some new ideas and some new opportunities to convince Mexico that it needs to live up to the terms of the treaty."