The Santa Cruz River is a binational river, crossing the Mexican border twice, leading to unusual management challenges. Its aquifer has been subject to strong anthropogenic pressures that have seen the river “sink” below the surface. The flow was restored in the 1960s creating a singular hydrosystem: a perched aquifer consisting of surface water flowing all year round and following rather the man-made rhythm of sewer discharge than weather events. As a result, we see a unique situation where an American river exists thanks to a Mexican city pumping the aquifer upstream and sending its wastewater to be treated across the border. These waters remain highly political as they stay the property of Mexico until they are treated: the country has often agitated the threat of retaining this water and, in doing so, directly threatened the riparian ecosystem of the Upper Santa Cruz. Yet, the river restoration is not as controversial as it is perceived differently by the communities along its banks. A disjunction exists between the different actors that make the river - landowners, environmentalists, farmers, state departments - as they all project their own interests and ideals on this specific landscape. The various discourses nonetheless all have in common their choice to make visible some features of the perennial river (e.g., the cottonwoods, the De Anza trail) and to make some others invisible (e.g., the underground pipelines, the deep wells).