By Julie Tomascik
Editor

The sweetest crop in Texas is no more.

Fields of green sugarcane now sit barren after the only sugar mill in Texas, the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, Inc., closed in February due to a lack of water.

It’s a difficult reality for farmers like Sam Sparks who have grown sugarcane for years.

“It’s really, really sad,” Sparks, who farms and ranches in Mercedes, said. “It’s strange to prepare a crop plan for the year and to not have sugarcane involved. It’s going to take a while to really settle in.”

Sparks’ family was instrumental in Texas sugarcane production and the mill from the beginning. His grandfather was one of the region’s first growers and a chairman of the mill’s board of directors.

Sparks continued the family legacy of growing cane and serving on the board.

But that’s come to an end and his fields of sugarcane have been plowed under as the decades-old industry is officially over in Texas. The water issues plaguing the crop and the region are driven by severe drought conditions, and reservoirs are also at an all-time low.

Much of the problem, however, centers along the neighboring country to the south. Mexico is significantly behind on the water it owes the U.S. under the 1944 Water Treaty, further exacerbating the water issue for Valley farmers.

Under the treaty, Mexico is required to deliver 1,750,000 acre-feet of water every five years, which is an average of 350,000 acre-feet annually. The current five-year cycle ends in October 2025, and Mexico is  behind by more than 700,000 acre-feet.

“Over the years, they’ve built up multiple dams and have been collecting water and not giving the United States the water that is owed in the treaty,” he said. “If Mexico were to give the water that it owes the United States, the mill would still be in operation and there’d still be cane grown in the Rio Grande Valley.”

Mexican government officials cite the drought as the reason for the delay in water deliveries.

“Right now, we do have a delay in water deliveries. That’s the reality this current cycle, but our intention is to mitigate that deficit as much as possible,” Manuel Morales, secretario de la Sección Mexicana for CILA, told the Texas Tribune.

Citrus orchards, vegetables, other fruits and traditional row crops all require water—water that isn’t available. That could eventually mean the same fate as sugarcane—ceasing to exist in the Valley.

“Water issues that we have with Mexico affects all crops growing in the Rio Grande Valley that need irrigation water,” he said. “If we don’t have the irrigation water to supply those crops, we just can’t grow them. Then all the logistics, the infrastructure goes away, as well.”

Just because farmers have water rights doesn’t mean they’ll have water this year. Many districts in the region didn’t allocate irrigation water for farmers, and counties have issued disaster declarations and implemented water restrictions.

That means thousands of normally irrigated acres will go unplanted this year.

“It’s desperate times right now in the Rio Grande Valley,” Sparks said.

A report released this year by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension shows the Valley could lose over $495 million in total crop production.

Farmers are feeling the losses, and so are the rural communities where they live.

When farmers are planting fewer acres, they need fewer employees. And with the sugar mill closing, about 500 employees are now without a job.

“There’s a tremendous amount of families that this directly affects, and then all the other commerce that goes along with cane production,” Sparks said. “It’s a significant economic blow to the Rio Grande Valley.”

Enforcing the 1944 Water Treaty is a priority issue for Texas Farm Bureau (TFB).

The state organization has hosted meetings with lawmakers, government agencies and farmers and ranchers. Congress also passed a resolution, which TFB supported, that encouraged negotiations to guarantee more predictable and reliable water deliveries from Mexico to the U.S.

“Unless substantive actions are taken to force Mexico to comply with the treaty, this problem will continue to further impact agriculture, municipalities and other sectors of the region,” TFB President Russell Boening said. “TFB stands ready to continue working with state and federal officials to combat this issue and preserve the future of Rio Grande Valley agriculture.”

Right now, farmers and ranchers like Sparks are waiting on a hurricane to bring much-needed rainfall or for Mexico to deliver the water it owes.

Both are a gamble, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Watch a video from Sam Sparks’ farm in Mercedes. 

The Texas woman whose home was turned into a squatter’s “drug den” and sold her furniture in a yard sale said she hired the man as a recommended repairman from TikTok.

Terri Boyette appeared in front of a Texas Senate committee on Wednesday to reveal the horrors she faced while trying to remove the vagrants from her home. 

“This is burglary. This is breaking and entering,” said Texas State Senator Paul Bettencourt, the committee chairman, according to Fox 4 Dallas. 

“He was selling your possessions on your front lawn. I am outraged. This should not happen in Texas, and it will never happen again after we get this bill passed.”

Boyette’s nightmare started when she fired the worker off the social media platmore last June to make repairs on her home while she cared for her elderly mother in Florida, according to WFAA.

While away, the repairman began squatting in Boyette’s Mesquite home, about 14 miles from Downtown Dallas, and allowed other strangers to do so with him. 

A painter had broken in and wrecked the place, leaving crack pipes in her oven and needles in a drawer, Boyette told The Post in March.

For nearly a year, they turned her home into a biohazard zone, with police telling her they were unable to resolve the issue. 

In December, a judge finally granted an eviction notice to remove the worker from the home, but with the holidays approaching, the judge extended the squatter’s appeal by 30 days.

“She didn’t want him to be homeless over the holidays, which left me homeless over the holidays,” Boyette told WFAA.

Once the suspected squatter knew he would be evicted from the home, he started selling off her washer, dryer, refrigerator and dining room table.

The alleged squatter was served with his final eviction notice on Feb. 6 and was formally evicted on March 20. 

But as it nears a year since the repairman and others began living in the home, Boyette said she’s still been unable to move back in due to the havoc and disarray left behind by multiple vagrants

Boyette’s Mesquite home was one of 475 such squatter cases in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, according to Bettencourt.

But he and other lawmakers plan to put the issue to rest with new legislation.

Bettencourt found that Texas, like many other states, does not clearly define a squatter or what a homeowner can legally pursue to define a person as such in court.  

He has since launched the committee to find an answer for the legal loopholes many vagrants use to shack up in homes they don’t pay rent on or illegally enter and claim to be tenants. 

Sen. Royce West, one of the legislators who sits on the committee, asked Boyette why the Mesquite Police Department wasn’t able to remove the squatters. 

Boyette detailed how police left her high and dry for months, and the issue was only resolved after months of back-and-forth in the courts.

“I called the police. They said, ‘How long has he been there?’ I said about two weeks. They said this is a civil matter,” she told the committee.

Boyette revealed the alleged squatter returned to the home in April, banging on the door and demanding to enter. 

The man was later arrested on a criminal trespass complaint. 

“It makes no sense. No sense at all. I am starting to get outrageous as well,” West proclaimed. “I want to know from Mesquite PD what they don’t understand about the statute.”

“They said because no one was living there,” Boyette told the senator. 

“That’s a bunch of crap,” he replied about the ineptitude of law enforcement.

Legislators from both parties have demanded answers from the police.

Bettencourt has requested the Mesquite Police Department to attend their next meeting to explain why the man was not removed from the home.