IBWC Confirms Deaths of U.S., Mexican Commissioners
September 17th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
For anyone who regularly follows the bureaucratic course of the Rio Grande, the International Boundary and Water Commission is a fundamental part of the important and often over-tapped river’s management structure. The IBWC, established to oversee the complex 1944 U.S.-Mexico water treaty governing water rights on the Rio Grande, was overseen by U.S. Commissioner Carlos Marin and Mexican Commissioner Arturo Herrera.
It is sad news to read today that both commissioners have perished in a plane crash. In a press release, the U.S. Consulate General in Juarez confirmed the deaths today of Commissioners Marin and Herrera. Pilot Matthew Peter Juneau and Jake Brisbin Jr., executive director of the Rio Grande Council of Governments, also died in the crash.
While the coastal devastation of Hurricane Ike has been widely reported, unrelated weather systems have led to severe flooding in Big Bend National Park and the towns of Presidio, Texas, and Ojianaga, Chihuahua, as well. Most area residents have been evacuated. The flooding is due to torrential rains in northern Mexico and the collapse of a Mexican levee on the Conchos River, which drains into the Rio Grande. The Commissioners left El Paso early Monday morning in a small chartered Cessna to fly over swollen reservoirs in Mexico and assess flood conditions at Presidio and Ojinaga.
Their plane was scheduled to land Monday in Presidio. According to the U.S. Consulate General, searchers located the aircraft’s wreckage this afternoon in the Sierra Madre mountain range, approximately 23 miles northwest of Presidio and 13 miles into Mexico.
Ty Fain, president of the Rio Grande Institute in Marathon, knew both commissioners and Brisbin well. “I have worked with them closely for many years and it’s just a terrible thing that’s happened,” Fain said. “They were extremely good guys who were devoted to their jobs.” Fain said Brisbin was the well-known former mayor of Marfa and the former Judge of Presidio County.
In 1997, Judge Brisbin helped lead a successful battle against the establishment of a nuclear waste dump at Sierra Blanca in nearby Hudspeth County.
An investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing. Plans for a memorial service have not been announced yet.
