Jonathan Paul Loomis

April 29, 1999

World Politics

Dr. Gregg

• Gray Davis, Governor of California
• Alejandro González Alcocer, Governor of Baja California
• William Clinton, President of the United States
• Ernesto Zedillo, President of Mexico

There are two factors with currently complicate the economic situation in southern California and northern Baja California: labor and water. The central impediment to economic progress is that there is either too much or too little of these two precious recourses, depending on where you are. In California water is abundant but labor is expensive. In Mexico water is scarce but labor is cheep.

The water in the border region, and the subsequent power produced by the falling of that water, is centered in the United States. The water itself comes from the Colorado River and is rerouted via three aqueduct systems to the greater Los Angeles, San Diego, and recently Phoenix metropolitan regions. The water that remains and crosses the border into Mexico is of a particular volume set by international treaty. However, while the American water systems remove water, they do not remove silt and pollutants. The result is that when the river reaches Mexican soil it has such a high salinity and is so polluted that it is unusable. Therefore, California-Baja California water is located principally on the northern side of the border.

The source of inexpensive labor in the region is, of course, Mexico. NAFTA has made it possible for American companies to produce goods across the border in Mexico at low cost (due to low salary demands, lower taxes, and lower environmental standards) and ship them directly back into the United States for retail at high profit without tariffs.

There needs to be some meeting of these two valuable resources. The water with facilitates economic development needs to reach those who can provide the labor for such development. The solution lies in a balance of tradeoffs between American and Mexican governments.

The proposed solution is threefold. The first part involves the extension of the Metropolitan Water District into northern Baja California. (Note: The Metropolitan Water District is operated by the State of California and provides about 60% of the water to the LA metro region.) The second part is a lifting of the treaty, which demands a quota of water reach Mexico via the Colorado River. The final aspect of the solution is a general improvement of labor and business laws in the serviced area.

The plan would provide sanitary water and power to northern Baja California thus facilitating economic growth, especially in the sense that American businesses would locate production there where labor is less expensive than in the United States.

The American Aqueduct systems would no longer be restricted in the volume of water that they could take from the Colorado River because the limitations would be lifted. They could drain the river dry. This would provide much needed water for the entire American Southwest, as well as provide the water needed for the aqueduct expansion into Mexico.

The third aspect of the plan is less economic and more social in nature. It would require the state of Baja California to improve labor and business laws such that Mexican labor would not be exploited by the invasion of American business. Natually, the Mexican advantage in enticing businesses to locate their production facilities south of the border is that it is inexpensive to do so. Therefore, the Mexican government would not want to produce equity with the American regulation system. The minimum wage would still be lower and environmental laws would probably still be more lax, however, it is tremendously important that the Mexican government not allow its people to be exploited in such a way that their lives to not significantly improve as a result of foreign investment.

There are three principle attacks that this proposal will come under if implemented. The first is that of the environmentalists who would argue that depleting the Colorado River entirely would be the equivalent of environmental homicide. However, it can also be argued that the present situation is no better. The excessively salty and polluted water that does arrive in the Gulf of California has destroyed the Colorado River delta. The farmland in the delta area is worthless and the water itself is unusable. Therefore, it can be argued that providing cleaned water to Mexico is of greater environmental importance than allowing unnaturally salty and polluted water to flow farther down stream. In fact, because these pollutants will terminate their journey in the United States, more stringent American environmental protection laws will provide for their cleanup.

The second criticism that might be leveled against this proposal would be from the northern side of the border. Americans might feel Mexican water users, the Americans having already paid for the lion's share of the aqueduct system, were robbing them. However, the socioeconomic benefits derived from such a plan far outweigh any cost to the Californian taxpayer. Californians already pay increased taxes because the state provides services to illegal immigrants. If the economic situation were improved in Baja California and jobs were more available, than Mexicans would be less likely to try to cross the border, and southern California's illegal immigrant problem would be partially alleviated.

The final hurtle that this plan would face would come from the Mexican side of the border and involves the border itself. Many Mexicans would feel that such a project would be an underhanded way of annexing Tijuana and moving the frontier between wealthy American culture and poor Mexican culture farther south. In some ways this would be the case and it is important to recognize this. Tijuana would become wealthier. Water and power are a tremendously valuable resource that Tijuana is currently lacking. However, a plan to help develop northern Baja California would provide for a buffer zone between the more wealthy and less wealth regions of North America. It would provide for a new region in which wealth and poverty could meet on a middle ground politically controlled by the poorer region, in this case Mexico. Economic improvement of the northern Mexico regions creates a geographic middle class zone during a time when middle classes are vanishing to the effects of socioeconomic stratification.