http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060318..._vWvCkUewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NTMzazIyBHNlYwMxNjk2
The issue with water seems quite urgent in Mexico in general as can be seen in the recent news about how on average people in Mexico City get only *one* hour of running water a day due to government neglect of infrastructure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/international/americas/16mexico.html
Not to mention increasing violence in "water wars" in Mexico in general.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060317...fkdl.0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Still, you have to ask, what right does Mexico have to *demand* that America give it free water it is not legally entitled to from a canal which runs entirely in American land and which America paid and built by itself. Water which America needs for its own farmers? What are they going to say in court? America is not allowed to make repairs to its canal because we can't steal water anymore?
This reminds me of the previous news about the Mexican government lambesting American imperialism for the plans to build border walls to stop illegal immigrants, comparing it to the Berlin Wall. Now, I think the wall plan is stupid, a white elephant, useless and a PR disaster. However, once again, how does America NOT have the moral or legal right to secure its borders? Especially since the Mexican government is doing everything to insecure the borders to the extent of publishing guides on how to illegal cross the border? And what about this infamous quote:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/20/D8EK6GGO9.html
Then there are also the demands from Mexico that illegal immigrants should get access to all sort of US government services (paid for by American citizens of course).
Now I post plenty of criticism of America in this forum but I have to defend America in this case. It's not even as if the attitude is, "Well it's illegal we know but we want to make money. Sorry, such is life." Instead it's, "What are you talking about? It's our *right*. We are *entitled* to these things!" It's not even asking, it's *demanding*. Where on earth does this sense of entitlement on the part of the Mexicans come from?!
MEXICALI, Mexico - Despite its name, the All-American Canal has been leaking water to the Mexican side of the desert border for more than 60 years, nourishing alfalfa, onion and cotton crops that might otherwise wither. Now the U.S. government is preparing to line the earthen channel with concrete.
Mexican farmers' loss will be California's gain: Scarce water that will no longer be able to seep away instead will help flush toilets and water lawns more than 100 miles west in San Diego.
And that would affect thousands of families whose fields cover thousands of acres around Mexicali, an industrial city of 800,000 that is gobbling up farmland on its outskirts. Critics of the project say the lining would prevent the replenishment of about 100 rural wells they use.
Nazario Ortiz, who farms 100 acres about three miles inside Mexico, worries that his hardscrabble community will not survive.
"Everything comes from the canal, so everything is going to be ruined," said Ortiz, 46, who lives in a village where old pickup trucks and unleashed dogs share dirt roads. "How are people going to make a living?"
It will be hard, Ortiz says, to stop his sons — ages 22, 18 and 16 — from illegally crossing the border to join relatives in Los Angeles.
For many of its 82 miles, the canal's green waters trace the U.S.-Mexican border, running through sand dunes and verdant fields to California's Imperial Valley, where it is the lifeblood for 500,000 acres of U.S. farmland.
The project to line 23 miles of the canal is slated to begin this summer and be completed in 2008. Project managers expect that the refit canal will capture enough water for 135,000 new homes, mostly in San Diego and its suburbs.
The deal is not, however, ironclad. A group of Mexicali farmers and businesses has sued in federal court in Las Vegas to stop construction; a hearing is scheduled April 24.
Nearly 3,000 acres in Mexico depend entirely on the All-American, according to the Mexicali Economic Development Council. California also relies on water that the canal siphons from the Colorado River as one of the West's major water sources winds from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico.
For years, water consumption spurred by breakneck growth in Southern California prompted Western states to complain they were not getting their share. A water-redistribution deal in 2003 cleared the way for the lining project, which, at an estimated cost of $225 million, will ease some of the pinch California feels from being able to gulp less water from the Colorado.
Mexico already gets 489 billion gallons of Colorado River water each year. Supporters of the lining project say that that should suffice — that the canal's seepage is water Mexico is not entitled to get. The Mexican government estimates 90 percent of the canal's seepage ends up in Mexico, according to Enrique Villegas, environmental protection secretary for Mexico's Baja California state.
"We don't mind sharing, but enough is enough," said Stella Mendoza, who serves on the board of the Imperial Irrigation District, which oversees the canal and solicited construction bids last month.
The issue with water seems quite urgent in Mexico in general as can be seen in the recent news about how on average people in Mexico City get only *one* hour of running water a day due to government neglect of infrastructure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/international/americas/16mexico.html
Not to mention increasing violence in "water wars" in Mexico in general.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060317...fkdl.0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Still, you have to ask, what right does Mexico have to *demand* that America give it free water it is not legally entitled to from a canal which runs entirely in American land and which America paid and built by itself. Water which America needs for its own farmers? What are they going to say in court? America is not allowed to make repairs to its canal because we can't steal water anymore?
This reminds me of the previous news about the Mexican government lambesting American imperialism for the plans to build border walls to stop illegal immigrants, comparing it to the Berlin Wall. Now, I think the wall plan is stupid, a white elephant, useless and a PR disaster. However, once again, how does America NOT have the moral or legal right to secure its borders? Especially since the Mexican government is doing everything to insecure the borders to the extent of publishing guides on how to illegal cross the border? And what about this infamous quote:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/20/D8EK6GGO9.html
"We learned to believe in the United States. We have a binational life," he said of Zacatecas, a state that has been sending migrants north for more than a century. "It isn't just a feeling of rejection. It's against what we see as part of our life, our culture, our territory."
Then there are also the demands from Mexico that illegal immigrants should get access to all sort of US government services (paid for by American citizens of course).
Now I post plenty of criticism of America in this forum but I have to defend America in this case. It's not even as if the attitude is, "Well it's illegal we know but we want to make money. Sorry, such is life." Instead it's, "What are you talking about? It's our *right*. We are *entitled* to these things!" It's not even asking, it's *demanding*. Where on earth does this sense of entitlement on the part of the Mexicans come from?!