OCR Text |
Show RIO GRANDE RECTIFICATION CONVENTION 453 of costs for irrigation development, this unit of proration for an inter- national flood control plan is unsuitable and produces serious irregu- larities. The Commission has taken into consideration the benefits that each country would receive according to the areas and their values to be protected rather than the benefits each would receive on the sole acreage basis. On the American side of the valley there are about fifty-three thousand (53,000) acres of land under the Rio Grande Federal Irrigation Project with water rights assured; the greater part of which is in full cultivation, and about seventeen thousand (17,000) acres in the lower portion of the valley below the project limits which are irrigated with project surplus water. The total irrigated area is seventy thousand (70,000) acres. This area is served with irrigation and drainage works, and first-class roads. Finance companies facilitate the financing of the production and distribution of agricultural products. "(9) On the Mexican side of the valley there are about thirty-five thousand (35,000) acres of land in cultivation, of which twenty thousand (20,000) acres have assured water rights under the Rio Grande Federal Irrigation Project, provided for by the Water Treaty of 1906. Practically no drainage works have been constructed and the irrigation works are largely insufficient. The productiveness of the lands on the Mexican side is under these circumstances much less than the corresponding lands on the north side of the river, and there are large areas with insignificant or no production. No major road improvements exist, and the finance companies organized to serve Mexican farmers are very limited, in number and resources, The indus- trial plants and means for handling agricultural products are in very small proportion when compared with those in the valley in the United States. " (10) The estimated value of agricultural investments in the Ameri- can part of the valley, according to figures assembled by the Bureau of Reclamation, including purchase of land and its preparation, farm improvements, equipment and live stock, is seventeen million dollars ($17,000,000) or thirty-four million gold pesos. The value of agri- cultural improvements on the Mexican side as estimated by Engineer Salvador Arroyo, Chief of the Flood Protection Work, is five million four hundred thousand (5,400,000) gold pesos. Comparing these agricultural values in one part of the valley with those in the other it is seen that the Mexican side represents thirteen per cent of the total and the American eighty-seven per cent. Valley lands on either side of the river without water rights and assured irrigation service have very nominal value as compared with the lands obtaining water service from project sources; a comparison of such areas on this basis results in twenty-seven per cent for Mexico and seventy-three per cent for the United States. "(11) As the cities and suburbs of El Paso and Juarez not only are included in the flood protection plan, but either directly or indirectly would receive a large part of the benefits of the rectification of the channel, the Commission has considered the proration of values which each city bears to the other and giving proper weights to various per- centages, believes the justifiable proration to be twelve (12) per cent for Mexico and eighty-eight (88') per cent for the United States. |