Potable or Affordable?: A Comparative Study of Household Water Security Within a Transboundary Aquifer Along the U.S.-Mexico Border

Abstract

The U.S.-Mexico borderlands are a water-scarce region, the result of a dry and variable climate, demographic and economic growth, and asymmetrical development in the transborder region. Generally, this accurately describes the condition of depleted water resources in the rapidly expanding urban conglomerates straddling the international boundary, where 90 percent of the borderlands population resides. The remaining 10 percent of the population, however, lives in small, rural communities that suffer from different and unequal water security challenges. Palomas, Chihuahua (population 5,748), and Columbus, New Mexico (population 1,625), are two adjacent communities that are mutually dependent for their drinking water supply source on arsenic- and fluoride-contaminated groundwater from the transboundary Mimbres Basin Aquifer. This paper examines how these two binational communities have confronted this water security challenge over a twenty-year period and the differences between and within the communities. Using a 1996 survey as a baseline, the analysis also includes a household survey of 152 households, 60 semistructured interviews, and participant observations of water practices during two months of fieldwork in the summer of 2016. Although Palomas and Columbus share a common groundwater resource, this research found that each local water utility adopted a distinct approach to addressing groundwater contamination, predicated on its financial and social resources, and structured by national and binational water policy and institutional parameters. The survey revealed that household water security improved in both communities in terms of water access and reliability. But centralized water filtration technology made water less affordable in Columbus, while decentralized water filtration technology did not resolve household water supply contamination problems in Palomas. This study demonstrates the importance of including water equity within the integrated framework of water security.