Reporter’s Notebook: Water, War Zones, and the Search for Peace on the Rio Grande

I’m on the road in south Texas, but I thought I’d post some pictures (all taken by me) and observations. This is a research trip for a book on water, the border, and the battles therein. Up to this point, I’ve focused mainly on Chihuahua, west Texas, and the Big Bend region. This time I was in south Texas (Rio Grande Valley, primarily), interviewing farmers, irrigation managers, and water experts about the drought here, which has resulted in the rationing of water for many farmers in the area and the closure of a sugar mill. I will refer to some to some of that, of course. But I wanted to focus on my last two nights, which I spent camped out (Kamp Keralum!) by the Rio Grande in Mission, Texas.

For two days, the Border Patrol, Coast Guard, and the Game Warden passed by incessantly. The Highway Patrol appears to be out there too (Operation Lone Star, if you were wondering). The constant sound of growling motors gets into your bones and psyche. It’s all day. It’s all night.

I was there, in part, to hang out with the river. My book follows the Rio Conchos from its headwaters in the Sierra Madre to Ojinaga and Presidio (where it becomes the Rio Grande), through where I was in the Rio Grande Valley. I came with the perspective that the river is alive, that it is a life force, and that it carries ancient memory.

At the end of the Rio Grande is a facility belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a company that designs, develops, and launches rockets and spacecraft. The picture below was taken quickly after I realized the entire area around SpaceX was closed to anyone without a badge. For “testing.” I briefly felt like a fugitive in Musklandia. Somehow, I had gotten by an impromptu checkpoint set up by the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department, which controlled movement into the area, but the checkpoint did stop University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley political scientist Terence Garrett (you should check out his article on border securocracy), who was going to meet me there and show me around. So I turned back.

Meanwhile, in more urgent earthly matters, the nearby Falcon Reservoir is operating at 8 percent of its capacity. There, a boat dock sits atop dry land. The Falcon and Amistad Reservoirs supplies farmers and municipalities in the Rio Grande Valley. A Border Patrol surveillance tower, aimed at Mexico, documents the whole ordeal. Perhaps this is the perfect picture of the 21st century.

On the other side of the Falcon Reservoir, a Border Patrol boat waits to plunge into the almost absent water. Near here, I asked a fisherman if he had seen the water go down. “Big time,” he said.

And still another part of the reservoir, together holding the front lines of a water crisis.

Other frontline members include the We Build the Wall organization, which crowdfunded money for this barrier, located a short walk from my campsite. In 2023, its founder, Brian Kolfage, was sentenced to four years in prison for siphoning donations. Border Chronicle favorite Scott Nicol likes to call this wall “we build the raft magnet”, due to the number of deflated rafts found in the vicinity.

And in the photo below that, a surveillance aerostat hovers over Rio Grande City. Constantly. Wherever you look, there it is.

The border has the feel of a war zone. There is a feeling of always being watched. But at least this sign in Brownsville keeps a sense of optimism. I myself will choose to embrace this optimism, even as it is placed in front of Brownsville’s version of the border barrier. It’s hard to see, but further down by the river is Operation Lone Star’s razor wire. Yet it declares: May Peace Prevail on Earth. And in the borderlands, I have met many more who share this sentiment than not.