(Headline USA) Authorities and activists in South Texas found themselves embroiled in a mystery.
Barrels of water that a pro-illegal immigration group had left for illegals traveling on foot had vanished.
Usually, they are hard to miss. Labeled with the word “AGUA” painted in white, capital letters and standing about waist-high, the 55-gallon, blue drums stand out against the scrub and grass, turned from green to a sundried brown.
Illegals use the route activists placed water on to try to circumvent a Border Patrol checkpoint on a busier highway about 30 miles to the east.
Pro-illegal immigration groups started setting the drums up on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico in the 1990s after authorities began finding bodies of those who succumbed to the harsh conditions.
John Meza volunteers with one such group in South Texas. He restocks the stations with gallon jugs of water, trims away overgrown grass, and ensures the GPS coordinates are still visible on the underside of the barrel lids.
On one of his rounds in July, Meza said, 12 of the 21 stations he maintains were no longer there.
The Associated Press compared images captured by Google Maps over the last two years and confirmed that some barrels that were once there were gone.
But to where?
In other states along the southern border, missing water stations have been ascribed to citizens not wanting to be overrun by illegal immigrants.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
