6 ms·

It's not difficult to understand, it's difficult to enforce. Mexico can set up laws about polluting their own water, but how are they going to enforce it in th

It's not difficult to understand, it's difficult to enforce. Mexico can set up laws about polluting their own water, but how are they going to enforce it in the USA? Same with CA--we can ask China to cut down on pollution, and they'll apparently promise it, but who's to enforce it? Ask more nicely? Or is it on the factories / companies themselves? Is a factory in China going to sacrifice economic growth so that a Californian can breathe cleaner air? Or is a US drilling company going to buy more expensive formulas so that Mexico city can have clean water someday? These things won't happen on their own. Ultimately that's the problem, in my opinion.

PLenz 13y ago
Well there are these things called Treaties that can cover this sort of stuff . A few years ago there was one signed in Kyoto and...Oh - I see your point.
pilom 13y ago
Actually Mexico threatened to take the US to international court during Nixon's presidency because the water coming out of the Colorado River into Mexico was so salty it was killing crops and un-drinkable. The US agreed to make one of the biggest De-salination plants in the world just before the border and now the US pays about $300/ton to clean up the Colorado River before it flows into Mexico.
- jeffdavis 13y ago
  http://www.usbr.gov/lc/yuma/facilities/ydp/yao_ydp.html http://www.usbr.gov/lc/yuma/facilities/ydp/yao_ydp.html That says the plant is not currently operating. It also says that it's only "included" in the water sent to Mexico. I don't see any indication that it's used for anything close to the full volume of the Colorado River.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    The lack of diversion is pretty clear: https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.727761,-114.704905&z=15&t=h https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.727761,-114.704905&z=15&t...
  - pilom 13y ago
    Thanks for the link! Didn't know it wasn't operating. My understanding is that the treaty says that the salt content should be less than X parts per million and when the Colorado River gets saltier than X, they can turn the plant on. This diverts some of the water out and returns it in with significantly less salt, thus reducing the total salt content of the river as a whole to a level less than X. Basically, imagine you have a glass of chocolate milk. You take a teaspoon of chocolate milk out and put a teaspoon of regular milk back in, you will reduce the chocolate content of the glass. The glass is the river as a whole, the plant only treats the teaspoon.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Actually Mexico threatened to take the US to international court during Nixon's presidency because the water coming out of the Colorado River into Mexico was so salty it was killing crops and un-drinkable. That doesn't really answer how it would enforce anything; sure, in that case, the US may have chosen to do something, but if it hadn't, its not like winning a case at the ICJ would have forced the US to do anything. Consider, e.g., Nigaragua v. United States. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States
dictum 13y ago
This reminds me of the debate of sovereignty in the context of mass surveilance. Ultimately, you can't keep a country from doing something that affects citizens of another country. You can only nudge them away from doing that with treaties, trade pacts and sanctions. China and the United States are Too Big to Care: small countries can't really tell them to stop doing something, and the effects of a sanction would be ridiculously small. The closest you can get to get a compromise from a superpower is to form an alliance of small to medium sized nations and then ask the superpowers to stop doing X. But regional powers already have a lot of trouble keeping good relations with other countries and often have dirt of their own (see the UN), so these alliances are usually ineffective for anything but trade regulations.

PLenz 13y ago

Well there are these things called Treaties that can cover this sort of stuff . A few years ago there was one signed in Kyoto and...Oh - I see your point.

pilom 13y ago

Actually Mexico threatened to take the US to international court during Nixon's presidency because the water coming out of the Colorado River into Mexico was so salty it was killing crops and un-drinkable. The US agreed to make one of the biggest De-salination plants in the world just before the border and now the US pays about $300/ton to clean up the Colorado River before it flows into Mexico.

jeffdavis 13y ago
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/yuma/facilities/ydp/yao_ydp.html http://www.usbr.gov/lc/yuma/facilities/ydp/yao_ydp.html That says the plant is not currently operating. It also says that it's only "included" in the water sent to Mexico. I don't see any indication that it's used for anything close to the full volume of the Colorado River.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  The lack of diversion is pretty clear: https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.727761,-114.704905&z=15&t=h https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.727761,-114.704905&z=15&t...
- pilom 13y ago
  Thanks for the link! Didn't know it wasn't operating. My understanding is that the treaty says that the salt content should be less than X parts per million and when the Colorado River gets saltier than X, they can turn the plant on. This diverts some of the water out and returns it in with significantly less salt, thus reducing the total salt content of the river as a whole to a level less than X. Basically, imagine you have a glass of chocolate milk. You take a teaspoon of chocolate milk out and put a teaspoon of regular milk back in, you will reduce the chocolate content of the glass. The glass is the river as a whole, the plant only treats the teaspoon.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Actually Mexico threatened to take the US to international court during Nixon's presidency because the water coming out of the Colorado River into Mexico was so salty it was killing crops and un-drinkable. That doesn't really answer how it would enforce anything; sure, in that case, the US may have chosen to do something, but if it hadn't, its not like winning a case at the ICJ would have forced the US to do anything. Consider, e.g., Nigaragua v. United States. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States

dictum 13y ago

This reminds me of the debate of sovereignty in the context of mass surveilance. Ultimately, you can't keep a country from doing something that affects citizens of another country. You can only nudge them away from doing that with treaties, trade pacts and sanctions. China and the United States are Too Big to Care: small countries can't really tell them to stop doing something, and the effects of a sanction would be ridiculously small. The closest you can get to get a compromise from a superpower is to form an alliance of small to medium sized nations and then ask the superpowers to stop doing X. But regional powers already have a lot of trouble keeping good relations with other countries and often have dirt of their own (see the UN), so these alliances are usually ineffective for anything but trade regulations.