Texas Border Business
By Roberto Hugo González / Texas Border Business
Regional leaders across multiple forums and interviews have described a widening water crisis in the Rio Grande Valley, affecting municipalities, industry, and agriculture, and have highlighted the cost and complexity of delivering a reliable supply.
At a February 2026 forum hosted by Atlas Hall Rodriguez LLP, Dante Galeazzi outlined the scale of the challenge, stating that “we get 90% of our fresh water in the valley from the river.” Galeazzi, president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association (TIPA), said shortages are compounded by infrastructure losses, adding, “right now, we lose somewhere between 40 to 60% of all the water that moves through those canal systems.” He also detailed the cost of improvements, stating, “It costs somewhere between three to five million dollars per mile of canal.”
Galeazzi compared water use across sectors like data centers, noting, “cooling a 1-megawatt server requires 20 acre-feet of water,” while “if I were to grow one acre of onions, I would only need two acre-feet of water,” illustrating competing demands between industry and agriculture.
In a separate interview on KURV 710 AM, conducted by Sergio Sanchez, Mark M. Ellison described a proposed desalination project by RGV Desal LLC, a joint venture between US Desalination and IDE Technologies. Ellison, Director of Business Development for Texas at IDE Water Assets, said the facility is planned to produce 50 million gallons per day, expandable to 100 million.
Ellison said the project would serve “both municipalities and industry” and emphasized its role as a supplemental source. “You always want to be able to use your lowest cost water first and then, but have that insurance policy,” he said, adding, “the Gulf is not going to go dry.” He also stated, “The Gulf cannot be curtailed as river water can.”
At the RGV Connect Water Forum, David Fuentes described a separate water reclamation project based on capturing and treating drainage runoff. Hidalgo County Commissioner David Fuentes said the system could produce up to 18 million gallons per day and supply cities at scale. “We could provide the city of Edinburg… four times the amount of water they would need in a single year,” Fuentes said.
Fuentes said the project could also affect agriculture, stating, “had we had a project like this, who knows? We might have been able to save the sugar mill,” referring to the closure of the Rio Grande Valley sugar mill.
At the same forum, Brian Jones addressed the agricultural impact. Brian Jones, a farmer and Texas Farm Bureau state director, said the mill’s closure in 2024 resulted in “a permanent loss of 500 jobs” and “a hundred-million-dollar annual industry.” He added that water shortages have led to broader economic impacts, citing estimates of $495 million in direct annual losses and $990 million in total annual losses.
Panel discussions at the RGV Partnership’s RGV Connect forum series also addressed declining water availability and infrastructure constraints. Participants noted that agriculture remains directly affected, with reduced water supply forcing changes in crop selection and output.Across these discussions, officials and industry representatives identified desalination and water reclamation as part of a bigger strategy to diversify supply, while emphasizing that infrastructure costs
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