The Río Esperanto at Thirty-One: A Resource and a Responsibility

The Río Esperanto does not observe the administrative boundary between Tierra Verde and Costa Mar. It rises in the interior of one region, crosses into the other, and delivers most of the Republic's hydroelectric capacity without consulting either Regional Assembly along the way. For thirty-one years this arrangement has worked tolerably well, managed by a patchwork of bilateral protocols, Federal Treasury transfer payments, and the quiet goodwill of two Governors who have, on the whole, preferred negotiation to confrontation. Tolerably well, however, is not the same as well, and the dry season now drawing to a close in both regions has exposed the patchwork for what it is.

Governor Báez and Governor Adeyemi issued a joint statement in April noting that reservoir levels at the Río Esperanto's three main generation facilities had fallen to their lowest point in a decade. The statement was measured in tone and careful to avoid assigning blame. We read it, nonetheless, as a signal that the current governance arrangements are under strain. When two Governors find it necessary to issue a joint statement about a river, the subtext is usually that the federal framework has not provided the instrument they needed to act unilaterally, and that they are improvising in public.

The Federal Charter assigns management of inter-regional natural resources to the Federal Assembly, which has the authority to establish a standing commission with binding regulatory powers. No such commission exists for the Río Esperanto. What exists instead is the Inter-Regional Hydroelectric Protocol of 2003, a document that was adequate for the demand levels of its era and that has been amended, by informal agreement, four times since. The Federal Treasury Minister, Marcus Eklund, has indicated that a formal review is under consideration. We would encourage the Minister to move from consideration to proposal before the next dry season arrives.

There is a broader point here that extends beyond water policy. The Río Esperanto is one of the Republic's most visible symbols — its name is not accidental — and the way the federation manages it says something about the federation's maturity. A polity that can draft a constitutional amendment on the voting age, argue a franchise case before the Federal Court, and conduct four-region elections through a single secure portal ought to be capable of establishing a permanent, properly staffed commission to govern a river it has named after its own language. The argument for doing so is not sentimental. It is institutional. Shared resources require shared governance, and shared governance requires a structure that does not depend on the personal rapport of whoever happens to be Governor at any given moment.

We do not suggest that the Río Esperanto is in crisis. The reservoirs are low; they have been low before; they will recover. What we suggest is that the Republic use this moment of strain to build something more durable than the next informal amendment to a twenty-three-year-old protocol. Zandoria Day is six months behind us. The founding generation built institutions where there had been none. It is not too much to ask that this generation maintain the habit.