11:43 AM May 20, 1996
CONSTRUCTION OF TOXIC AND RADIOACTIVE WASTE DUMPS
Poison thousands of people in the border belt and violate several international agreements. Washington insists the installation of the "dumps" in the states of California, Texas and New Mexico will not affect their neighbour as they will fulfil strict environmental norms. However, Mexican deputies, and ecologists on both sides of the border are far from convinced and want the plans to be blocked. The Mexican foreign office said Wednesday it would be calling for additional technical reports, as the information received so far could not dispel the "legitimate" concerns of several social and non governmental organisations. "To deal with the principle of prior notification" stipulated in bilateral agreements "in order to assure the activities brought about under the jurisdiction of one of the parts do not jeopardise the other, more information has been requested," said the sources. The United States government is planning to build the retention centres in Sierra Blanca, Ruidoso and Carlsbad, three points forming a triangle covering 250 sq km barely 27 km from the Mexican frontier. The construction of these storage places is a "blatant violation of an agreement signed in 1983, where both nations undertook not to install centres of contamination within a 100 km strip" along the border, said Richard Boren, coordinator of the International Ecologist Alliance of the Bravo. The installation of these dumps will also raise questions for the work of bilateral commissions on environmental issues set in motion by the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico and the United States in late 1993. Early this month, environmental authorities in Mexico City and Washington met to study the frontier problems for the third year running. On this occasion no agreement was reached on the waste issue, though it was mentioned the issue should be dealt with under a 1995 convention which ratified the principle that no works should be carried out if they will affect the other country. The Mexican Senate Ecology and Environment Committee said it had told the United States authorities of its "total opposition" to the projects for dumps near the frontier. Greenpeace claim the US plans are "highly dangerous," as the area planned to hold the toxins is over subterranean water reserves which run into the rio Bravo river. The rio Bravo, also known as the rio Grande, runs along 2,053 km of the frontier between the two nations before reaching the Gulf of Mexico, and is one of the main sources of water for the 3.5 million people living near both sides of the border. A recent study by the Committee of Limits and Waters, a bilateral organisation created to regulate the use of frontier water, showed that samples taken at 19 points along the Bravo, and in 26 of its tributaries show more than 40 toxic substances. The river is contaminated by pesticides used on crops, toxic substances tipped in by some of the 1,400 assembly plants which work in the area, open landfill sites and waste water from the border population - 47 percent of which is untreated. The disagreements over construction of the new waste sites has paradoxically emerged just when Washington announced it was ready to accept 20 metric tons of radioactive waste from 41 countries, including Mexico, for storage. This Monday the United States department of Energy said it would be storing the waste in special depositories in Southern Carolina. Reports from the National Ecology Institute, said barely one tenth of the eight million tons of dangerous waste generated in Mexico each year receive proper treatment. According to this body, investments of around 500 million dollars would be needed immediately even to treat part of the industrial waste turned out by Mexico.