The two countries have tried for years to thoroughly assess aquifers along the border.
Borderlands
Posted inArticles
Border wall divides lands, but not culture
A wall bars the physical passage of people in a park near San Diego— but music scales that barrier.
Posted inJuly 25, 2016: Salmon Power
On those who live and die along the border
Two new books look at the ever-changing face of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Posted inArticles
See the members of this unofficial border patrol
The Arizona Border Recon aims to provide intel and back-up for federal officers at the U.S.-Mexican border.
Posted inArticles
Tracing the West’s heroin highways
Illicit drugs move through this region at farther distances and greater speeds.
Posted inMay 30, 2016: Trial by Fire
The tenuous fate of the Southwest’s last jaguars
U.S. conservation of the endangered big cats depends on their populations in Mexico.
Posted inMarch 7, 2016: The Parks You Don't Know
Tracing America’s Borderlands history along the Anza Trail
Immigrants still follow Juan Bautista de Anza’s historic route.
Posted inArticles
How Western towns ​profit​ from detaining immigrants
Detention facilities provide economic stability for many rural towns.
Posted inArticles
Natural gas exports to Mexico are surging
A major new energy export market quietly emerges as Mexico takes advantage of low-priced U.S. gas.
Posted inJune 22, 2015: Dust to Dust
A border crossing gone wrong
Review of ‘The Jaguar’s Children’ by John Vaillant.
Posted inMay 25, 2015: Monument Man
The Latest: A bill to open public land to Border Patrol
Sen. John McCain proposes more immediate access at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Posted inArticles
New border security bill would roll back public lands protections
Sen. John McCain’s proposal would give Border Patrol more immediate access to sensitive borderlands.
Posted inArticles
Unwanted California tires end up in rivers and beaches
But efforts to use the trash as building materials in Mexico offer new hope.
Posted inArticles
A progress report on the Colorado River pulse
Researchers are sifting through the impacts of last spring’s release.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Charles Bowden’s Fury
The Southwest loses its strongest voice.
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Border out of control
National security runs roughshod over the Arizona wild.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
The Latest: Colorado River Delta update
BackstoryOver the last 50 years, the Colorado River has rarely reached its mouth in the Sea of Cortez. The giant dams on its main stem and the water demands of some 35 million people have largely dried out its vast delta, which once sustained cottonwood and willow forests and armies of fish and birds. But […]
Posted inGoat
Four women joyride the flood that will revive the Colorado River Delta
The guides warned us, of course. Or they sort of did. It was sometime after the river outfitter’s shuttle van had passed through the latticework of gates and fences that guards the steep, hairpinned road to the boat-launch at the base of the Hoover Dam, and possibly right before we realized that we had left […]
Posted inArticles
Veteran photographer shines light on US immigration
Death and deportation at the US-Mexico border, and lives after crossings.
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Chuck Bowden’s border war
Nearly a decade on, a writer’s look at the futility of the war on drugs still matters.