Background
In 1884 the International Boundary and Water Commission was founded between Mexico and the United States as an entity to, among other things, oversee the flow of water from the United States to Mexico. The IBaWC negotiated the 1944 United States-Mexico Treaty for Utilization of Water of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande allotted to Mexico a guaranteed annual quantity of water from these sources. However the treaty did not provide for the level of quality which became a problem with rapid development in the southern United States in the late 1950s. The United States began diverting significant amounts of water from the Colorado River for the new developed areas. Mexico protested and entered into negotiations with the United States. In 1974 an international agreement resulted in interpreting the 1944 treaty as guaranteeing Mexico the same quality of water as that being used in the United States.
Read more about this topic: Colorado River Dispute
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)