Frontera  NorteSur Jan - Mar 2010

Baja New Flashpoint in Mining Wars

If many locals have their way, Canada’s Mexican gold rush won’t extend into the southern tip of Baja California. Planned for a site within the Sierra de la Laguna biosphere, the Paredones Amarillos gold mine is awaiting approval of a land use permit from federal authorities that could pave the way for the extraction an estimated 1.2 million ounces of gold over a period of 9.3 years.

But plans for the open pit mine proposed by Canadian-owned Vista Gold Corporation are sparking opposition from environmentalists and residents. Critics contend that metals and chemicals used in the mining process could contaminate precious groundwater supplies, scar a fragile ecosystem and threaten public health. Further, they fear critical sea turtle and whale habitats could be jeopardized from the construction of a desalination plant designed to pipe in water for mining operations from a coastal site at Las Playitas.

Ariel Ruiz, spokesman for a local citizens’ movement gaining steam in Todos Santos and nearby communities, said opponents have gathered 3,000 signatures on a petition against a mine.

“What we are really talking about is that all the water we consume comes from (Sierra de la Laguna),” Ruiz said. “People are opposed because it is high price they might have to pay for this investment.”

Boasting mixed stands of pine and oak and recognized by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a world biosphere, the Sierra de la Laguna is the source of groundwater for a wide swath of Baja California Sur.

Vista Gold President Fred Earnest and project manager Carlos Calderon both dispute environmentalists’ contentions that Paredones Amarillos would cause ecological harm. According to Calderon, Vista Gold will utilize environmentally sensitive, state-of-the-art mining technology and practices and uphold “the highest international standards” like the International Cyanide Management Code.

Projected to create nearly 400 construction and 300 mining jobs if it moves forward, the Paredones Amarillos mine will entail an investment of $170 million, according to Earnest. Also serving as Vista Gold’s chief operating officer, Earnest pledged his company will establish a foundation to support health care and education in Baja California Sur.

“We want to be a responsible corporate citizen in Baja California Sur,” Earnest said.

A decision on Vista Gold’s land use permit application is expected sometime early next year.

The Paredones Amarillo controversy is among the latest ones to arise from the aggressive expansion of Canadian mining companies in Mexico. Already dominating foreign investment in the country’s fast-growing mining sector, 200 Canadian companies are reportedly scouring 400 places in the Mexican Republic for possible new mines.

The surge in Canadian mining activities in Mexico and other parts of the world is being enthusiastically underwritten by the Harper administration. According to a compendium prepared by the Halifax Initiative, a coalition of non-governmental groups founded to press for reform of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, numerous government programs help subsidize Canadian mining companies through direct loans and guarantees, insurance, foreign aid policies, and stock investments from public pension funds.

The central state of San Luis Potosi is another front in the mining vs. environment battle. A long-running fight between local landowners and a national network of environmental and human rights activists on one side and the Vancouver-based New Gold Inc. one the other almost came to a head last month when Mexico’s Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) revoked an operating permit for the company’s Cerro de San Pedro mine.

Reiterating charges that New Gold’s operations were provoking public health problems from cyanide and mercury emissions as well as causing damages to a historic church and other buildings, opponents applauded the decision. This month, however, a Mexican court threw out Semarnat’s decision. Withdrawing the mining permit, the court stated, would adversely impact 500 direct and 1,500 indirect jobs linked to the mine. New Gold, the court ruled, “has always respected environmental rules that regulate the activity it pursues.”

A citizen complaint about the mine was rejected earlier this year by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation. The Montreal-based commission is charged with investigating and issuing records of fact on environmental problems in the three member nations of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In some places, violence has been directed against mining opponents. After months of reportedly suffering threats, jail and even physical assault, Mariano Abarca, a prominent anti-mining organizer for the Mexican Anti-Mining Network (REMA) in Chiapas, was shot to death November 27 in the town of Chicomuselo, where farmers have waged a struggle against a barite mine run by the Canadian-Mexican firm Blackfire Exploration Ltd.

Earlier this month, Chiapas state law enforcement officials arrested three men purportedly connected to Blackfire Exploration Mexico for Abarca’s murder. Citing environmental violations, the Chiapas state government also ordered the Chicomuselo mine temporarily shut down.

Samuel Ruiz, the former bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas, spoke out against the murder of the environmental activist. In order to prevent more deaths like Abarca’s, Ruiz appealed for an end to the “criminalization of defenders, as well as the stigmatization and repression of organized peaceful protest…”

A growing international scandal surrounds the Abarca murder. According to Rick Arnold, coordinator of the non-government organization Common Frontiers-Canada, documents in the possession of REMA and its supporters show that Blackfire was funneling $1,000 monthly into an account controlled by Chicomuselo’s mayor for the purpose of keeping company opponents “under control.”

The activist’s slaying is helping stoke a rising debate over the conduct of Canadian companies abroad and the Harper government’s role in promoting resource extraction in the developing world.

Opposed by the Harper administration and the mining industry, a piece of legislation pending in the Canadian Parliament, Bill C-300, proposes to make public financial and political support for private mining companies contingent on meeting human rights, environmental and health standards. A second bill, C-345, would permit foreigners to sue Canadian companies in Canadian courts for human rights abuses committed abroad.

Ottawa is clearly concerned about the ramifications of the Abarca murder. Two high officials, Canadian Governor-General Michaelle Jean and Peter Kent, junior foreign minister for the Americas, visited Chiapas shortly after Abarca’s slaying, but did not meet with REMA members, as was requested by the group.

On Friday, December 18, four Canadian organizations-Common Frontiers-Canada, Mining Watch Canada, United Steelworkers and Council of Canadians-jointly announced they would pursue legal charges with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police against Blackfire for violating the 1998 Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act.

There was no immediate comment from Blackfire, but an undated statement posted on the company’s website lamented violence in Chicomuselo and expressed sympathy with family members of victims.

Sources: Miningwatch.org, December 18, 2009. Press statement. El Universal, September 7, 2009; December 9, 14 and 15, 2009. Articles by Alberto Aguilar, Gladys Rodriguez, Oscar Gutierrez and Adriana Ochoa. Narconews.com, December 14, 2009. Article by Kristin Bricker.

El Diario de Juarez, November 13, 2009. Greenpeace Mexico, November 19, 2009. Press statement. Ecoamericas, November 2009. Proceso/Mining Watch Canada, August 26, 2009. Article by Isain Mandujano and Sandra Cuffee. Commission for Environmental Cooperation, July 15, 2009. Press statement. Halifaxinitiative.info. Blackfireexploration.com.

Border Bank Hits Billion Dollar Mark

In a milestone of sorts, the North American Development Bank (NADB) recently exceeded the billion dollar mark in financing projects for the US-Mexico border region. Chartered as a result of the environmental side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the NADB provides loans and grants to both US and Mexican communities.

The latest projects funded by the bank include road paving in Tijuana, wastewater treatment and systems in Nuevo Laredo and storm water systems in El Paso, Texas. In El Paso, the bank has agreed to purchase $53 million in 20-year municipal revenue bonds at a 5.38 percent interest rate.

Juan Antonio Flores, NADB spokesperson, told Frontera NorteSur the deal was a good one for the Texas border city, since 35 percent of the interest payments on the loan will be reimbursed to El Paso by federal stimulus funds. “They get interest brought down,” Flores said.

The NADB official said construction of the system, which should help El Paso withstand flooding disasters like the one that struck the city in 2006 as well recharge the stressed Bolson Hueco Aquifer, is expected to commence in January 2010.

Besides the Tijuana road paving contracted out to the Cemex company, the NADB has agreed to finance a $22 million water and wastewater project for both the Baja California border city and Playas de Rosarito to the south.

The NADB has been especially active on the Mexican side of the border. In Nuevo Laredo, for instance, a $57.7 million wastewater treatment plant and system was inaugurated last week in a ceremony attended by Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores, Nuevo Laredo Mayor Ramon Garza Barrios and NADB Deputy Managing Director Hector Camacho.

The San Antonio-based bank channeled $25.4 million for the project, including $20 million in grant funds from the Border Environment Infrastructure Fund, which is supported by funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The new wastewater treatment system is expected to reduce contamination of the Rio Grande shared by both Mexico and the US. Additionally, NADB is providing $84 million to Nuevo Laredo for storm water collection and street paving purposes.

“In addition to the obvious environmental benefits for Nuevo Laredo, these projects will also help from an economic development standpoint and strengthen competitiveness,” the NADB’s Hector Camacho said in a statement.

According to Flores, several factors are behind the surge in NADB funding in northern Mexico, including a greater willingness on the part of Mexican governments to take on debt, the availability of matching funds from the EPA and the Calderon administration’s drive to increase wastewater treatment capacity in the country.

“We’re more active in Mexico,” Flores said. “There’s always been a greater need in Mexico and the terms of loans are affordable in Mexico.”

NADB loans, which charge Mexican clients between 8.6 and 10.5 percent in interest, are less expensive than those offered by commercial banks south of the border, Flores said. Although the NADB rates would be considered high for US communities, which get lower interest rates from the bank because they are pegged to the US Treasury indexes, current bank interest rates for Mexico are “still good” for the country, he maintained.

Back in the Paso del Norte borderland, NADB funding of nearly $23 million in grants from the EPA-sponsored Border Environment Infrastructure Fund is in the pipeline for four water quality and wastewater treatment projects in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. A project planned for the town of Anthony south of Las Cruces, New Mexico, includes arsenic removal.

In the entire border region, the NADB is helping fund 132 environmental infrastructure projects valued at $1.07 billion, according to a bank tally issued this month. In terms of the geographic breakdown of the projects, about 70 percent are situated in Mexico and 30 percent in the United States, according to Flores.

-Kent Paterson

Mexican Environmental Leader Killed

Editor’s Note:

Internationally-known Mexican environmentalist and forest defender Felipe Arreaga was killed Wednesday, September 16, while driving his ATV in Petatlan, Guerrero. The longtime campesino leader was struck by a mini-bus and died a few hours later in a hospital in nearby Zihuatanejo. Although Petatlan is the site of a military base, it lacks civilian medical facilities capable of handling serious injuries. The driver of the mini-bus fled the scene of the crash, and many circumstances of the incident are still unclear.

The 60-year-old Arreaga first rose to international prominence during the 1990s as one of the leaders of a movement to halt over-logging in the Sierra Madres. The campesino environmentalists were persecuted by logging interests and authorities, and Arreaga himself was eventually jailed on flimsy murder charges before being acquitted in 2005. In recent years, Arreaga and his wife, Celsa Valdovinos, dedicated their efforts to reforesting the Sierra Madres and promoting organic agriculture.

While still in jail, Arreaga was awarded the Chico Mendes prize by the Sierra Club. In 2006, Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources also recognized Arreaga’s efforts. Arreaga was buried in his beloved Sierra Madres on Thursday, September 17, 2009. As one Mexican reporter wrote, “The cloudy sky seemed to indicate that even nature was saddened by his passing.”

Below is an original 2005 article that first appeared in Frontera NorteSur about Arreaga’s imprisonment and his life-long struggle to save the Sierra Madres and the communities that inhabit the high forests and Costa Grande of Guerrero.

SUMMER 2005

Zihuatanejo, Guerrero

Clutching his three-year old granddaughter Dayra Itzel, Felipe Arreaga Sanchez speaks about the destruction of the environment in the noisy visitor’s courtyard of the Zihuatanejo jail. While an evangelical Christian group blares redemption songs and invokes brown-uniformed prisoners to praise the Lord through a sound-system that almost rattles the bars, Arreaga strains his words to recount episodes of the long struggle against forest exploitation in the southern state of Guerrero which he says landed him behind bars on a murder charge.

The former secretary of the Campesino Environmentalist Organization of Petatlan and Coyuca de Catatlan (OCESP) was one of the principal founders of a movement that gained international recognition in the late 1990s when its members stopped logging trucks from delivering timber to a Mexican Pacific coastal mill operated at the time by the Boise Cascade Corporation. The protesting small farmers charged contractors for the United States-based company were overcutting the forest and drying up water sources.

In November 2004, Arreaga was arrested by Guerrero state police and charged with the 1998 murder of 15-year-old Abel Bautista, the son of onetime Boise Cascade logging contractor Bernardino Bautista. Save for a brief visit to the hospital during which he was handcuffed to his bed, Arreaga has been in prison awaiting trial since last fall.

Arreaga maintains he is innocent, and is puzzled why he was jailed years after the Bautista murder happened. “What I am clear about is interests have been affected,” he affirms.

A longtime forest advocate, Arreaga has had previous scrapes with the authorities. In 1999, Mexican soldiers arrested OCESP activists Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera and charged them with possessing weapons and drugs. According to Mexico’s official National Human Rights Commission, evidence existed that Montiel and Cabrera were tortured by their captors. Arreaga and other OCESP members spent months running and hiding in the mountains from soldiers they charged were out to do them harm.

World attention on the Guerrero forest conflict is picking up due to Arreaga’s incarceration. In recent months, the campesino activist has received letters from supporters worldwide, and dozens of Mexican and international environmental and human rights organizations have sent e-mails, faxes and letters to Guerrero state authorities demanding Arreaga’s freedom. Arreaga has been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, and he has received the assistance of the Salt Lake City-based Environmental Defenders Law Center and prominent Seattle attorney Marica Newlands of the Heller Ehrman law firm.

A WITNESS TO ECOCIDE

When asked his reaction to the international movement on his behalf, Arreaga doesn’t answer in the first person. Instead, he trails off to his favorite subject-ecology. “It brings a moment of pleasure and happiness to know that there are people committed to the environment,” Arreaga says. “I say don’t do it for me, but for the environment, for those that will come and for those that have been here before.”

Never receiving a formal education as a child, Arreaga later took adult basic education classes and is now using his prison time to practice reading and writing. But the son of the Sierra Madres is well-versed in ecological themes, learning about clear-cutting, species extinction and climate change from first-hand observation as a small farmer. Arreaga readily recalls how it was in the Guerrero mountains when he was a boy, growing up in a region rich with deer, iguana, jaguar, iguanas and “guacayamas in the pines.” Gradually the young man grew alarmed as he watched the animals disappear, vast tracts of land burned for cattle pasture, patches of forest stripped for timber, and water dry up high in the mountains. “There are no crayfish, iguana, wild plant and animal life,” Arreaga sighs.

Nowadays, Arreaga laments the fate of the forest. “That’s my home, it’s the home I defend. My job is to educate the people in the countryside and in the city,” he says. Contrary to some popular versions in Guerrero, Arreaga and the other campesino environmentalists do not have a strict no-logging stance, but Arreaga insists that proper studies need to be done and immediate reforestation projects undertaken before a plot can be cut. “I’m not against exploiting timber, but it has to be done in a rational way,” he says.

TESTIMONIES AND CRIMES OF GHOSTS

Maria Elena, who was present when her father was arrested outside their home in Petatlan, points to a report issued by the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center of La Montana, a non-governmental organization which is providing legal assistance to Arreaga. The report details numerous irregularities in the authorities’ case, including the fact that one of the men co-indicted with Arreaga, Crispin Sanchez Cortes Santana, had been dead for two years before the murder of Abel Bautista. “We brought photos of his grave in Petatlan and the lawyer got his death certificate from Petatlan,” says Celsa Valdovinos, Arreaga’s wife. “It’s clear the crime of which my husband is accused is a fabrication.”

The case against Felipe Arreaga essentially rests on a signed statement by a man who has vanished. His name is Prisciliano Bautista, and he was ambushed while traveling in the mountains with his half-brother Abel. Prisciliano supposedly saw Arreaga and more than a dozen gunmen —including the deceased Crispin Sanchez— hiding near a large rock. Staff from Tlachinollan inspected the site, as did Maria Elena, and concluded that no such rock capable of concealing a large group existed.

Then there are the video and statements from witnesses who place Arreaga several hours from the scene of the murder on the day in question in 1998, first being treated for a back problem and later attending a wedding. Finally, another prosecution witness has retracted his testimony, saying it had been pressured.

A HUMAN RIGHTS TEST

The case against Arreaga is proving to be an embarrassing one for Guerrero state authorities, who inherited it from the previous Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)-dominated state government. The new state government is headed by Governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo, a longtime civic activist and former mayor of Acapulco who was elected on the ticket of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Before winning office last February, Torreblanca campaigned for the respect of human rights and the law.

Arreaga’s supporters criticize the Torreblanca administration, saying numerous requests for a personal meeting with the governor have so far fallen on deaf ears. In late June, a group of Arreaga’s Mexican and U.S. supporters met with Guerrero State Government Secretary Armando Chavarria, who promised the activists that a three-lawyer commission would review the case.

(Editor’s Note: Armando Chavarria later resigned his post. A member of the PRD party, Chavarria was serving as president of the Guerrero State Legislature when he was assassinated in Chilpancingo in August 2009.)

But supporters contend that enough information exists for the state to simply withdraw the charges. “On the contrary, they should find out who is fabricating these charges and accept that there are some corrupt elements inside their own offices, powers that need to be cleaned up,” says Veronique Bassot, the international relations coordinator for the Tlachinollan human rights center.

Arreaga confronts 50 years in the hoosegow if a guilty verdict is delivered. Even with the slammer hanging over his head, Arreaga says he is most pained by not being able to contribute to the ecological struggle. Even inside, he is a passionate disciple of the e-word. While he is stymied from pursuing projects he once had in the works, Arreaga maintains a vision in which the Guerrero mountains are reforested, slash-and-burn agriculture abandoned, and iguana nurseries built to repopulate the species.

Before he was jailed, Arreaga and Celsa Valdovinos were involved in the promotion of organic farming and a massive seeding of red cedar trees to revive the scarred landscape of Petatlan. The president of the Women’s Environmentalist Organization of Petatlan, Valdovinos attempts to maintain the eco-projects going while traveling back and forth to Zihuatanejo to visit her husband and garner support for his cause. Arreaga, meanwhile, hones up on his reading and writing. And he chats ecology with visitors.

As the Christian fellowship lays down its Bibles, a guard approaches to tell visitors the day is almost over. Arreaga crushes a plastic Pepsi bottle and begins explaining how trash needs to be properly compacted and recycled. He then clutches Dayra Itzel again, her distant, baby eyes giving a hint that even at her young age she is aware that something is not quite right.

-Kent Paterson

A Hot and Nasty Summer Week

Across the US-Mexico borderlands, unbearably hot temperatures and extreme weather events kept many people jumpy this week. Temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit prompted authorities to open emergency shelters, shut down swimming pools and issue health alerts. In the state of Coahuila, a high of 122 degrees was reported.

In Eagle Pass, Texas, where the thermometer reached 102 on July 21, Fire Chief Jesus Rodriguez urged the public to consume enough water and food as well as avoid direct exposure to the sun. Guillermo Soberanes Valenzuela, skin disease specialist for the Sonora State Health Department, issued a similar call.

Recommending special precautions be taken between the hours of 11 am and 3 pm, Soberanes suggested residents of the Mexican border state wear plenty of protective clothing, use sunglasses and carry umbrellas. Excessive sun exposure, Soberanes stressed, could result in both short-term and long-term health issues.

Problems connected to boiling weather cropped up in Mexicali, Baja California, where at least five people were treated for heat stroke by July 21. The high temperature was predicted to reach 111 degrees on July 23. Mexicali’s Integral Family Development Center served at least 20 people daily this week at an emergency shelter in the Nacionalista neighborhood. Besides cool space, residents were offered clean clothing and food.

Although the exact sites were not publicly disclosed, the Baja California State Health Department shut down some swimming pools in Mexicali because of the presence of amoebas that proliferate in high temperatures.

In 2006, 29 people succumbed to intense heat in Mexicali; most of the victims were migrants or indigents. An agricultural worker died in agony at a local health clinic the following year after suffering exposure to extreme heat.

Baja California proved fertile ground for five forest fires that broke out in the Juarez and San Pedro Martir mountains from July 18 to July 22. In the Paso del Norte region, meanwhile, flash flooding on July 21-22 once again exposed the deficiencies of flood control infrastructure.

On its website, an El Paso television station posted a photo of hail piling up in the “Sun City.” In nearby Anthony, New Mexico, streets were transformed into small lakes. The major thoroughfare near the University of Texas at El Paso was struck by heavy rain early on July 22, making dry crossings a virtual impossibility for pedestrians and difficult for drivers.

In 2006, major flooding struck the Paso del Norte when furious storms pounded the earth after a long dry spell. The floods impacted tens of thousand of people in El Paso, Ciudad Juarez and southern New Mexico, additionally resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in property damages.

Sources: Frontera, July 22, 2009. Nuevo Dia (Nogales), July 22, 2009. La Jornada, July 22, 2009. Articles by Antonio Heras and the  Notimex news agency. Zocalo.com.mx, July 22, 2009. Article by Francisco Javier Garza. Lacronica.com,. July 22, 2009. Article by Fernando Garcia. Kfoxtv.com, July 22, 2009. Televisa, July 21, 2009. El Universal, May 19, 2009. Article by Rosa Maria Mendez Fierros.

Year-old Legal Challenge to Border Wall Dies

A legal challenge in the US Supreme Court to the construction of the US-Mexico border wall was declared dead today. The justices declined to hear an appeal by the County of El Paso, Texas, to an earlier decision by a US federal court judge that allowed the Bush administration to proceed with construction of the controversial wall.

"This decision now ends our pursuit of this case," said El Paso County Attorney Jose Rodriguez in a statement. "El Paso County would very much like thank Mayer Brown LLP of Washington, D.C., for their defense and support in this case. Mayer Brown litigated this case without any cost to the county."

The El Paso case grew out of former Department of Homleand Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's waiver last year of more than 30 federal, state and local laws to speed up construction of border fencing in El Paso County, Texas, among other locations. Arguing that Secretary Chertoff did not have the statutory authority to issue the waivers, El Paso County and several co-plaintiffs filed suit against the federal government last June.

Lawyers for El Paso County later went to the Supreme Court to appeal a September 11, 2008 ruling by US District Court Judge Frank Montalvo that upheld Secretary Chertoff's presumed authority.

Although his case did not prevail, Rodriguez said he was optimistic that the Obama Administration will consult with local communities on the fence and other border security issues.

According to Elhiu Dominguez, public affairs officer for El Paso County, Rodriguez and other local leaders recently met with border czar Alan Bersin. "They are talking to the Department of Homeland Security," Dominguez said.

Now almost finished, the controversial, 670-mile border fencing project has drawn opposition from a host of communities and entities on both sides of the border.

Opponents argue that costly fencing will cause environmental harm, disturb sacred Native American sites, send a wrong message to a friendly southern neighbor and result in more deaths of would-be illegal border crossers who will be detoured into more hostile zones. South of El Paso, the new fencing runs along the edge of Rio Bosque Wetlands Park, a refuge for migratory birds and other wildlife.

Border wall proponents, on the other hand, insist walling off the US-Mexico border is necessary to keep out contraband, immigrants and terrorists. Besides El Paso County, other co-plaintiffs in the ultimately unsuccessful suit against Chertoff included the City of El Paso, the El Paso County Water Improvement District No.1 and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, among others.

While the Supreme Court never actually ruled on the merits of the lawsuit, the high court's non-action on an important constitutional matter contains many implications for the ability of the executive branch to override congressional laws in the pursuit of defined interests of national security.

-Kent Paterson

Border Ecosystems to Get Protected Status

Mexico’s National Commission of Protected Areas (Conanp) is moving forward with plans to conserve two ecologically-sensitive areas in the northern Chihuahua borderlands. Beginning May 13, the federal agency is expected to open a 15-day public comment period on studies that form part of its effort to establish a natural protected area and a biosphere reserve in Chihuahua.

In the first instance, comments could be directed at a proposal to create a nearly 164,000-acre natural protected area in the Samalayuca sand dunes, an extensive chain of white-topped hills located just southeast of Ciudad Juarez. Granting Samalayuca a protected status was announced at the beginning of President Felipe Calderon’s term, but the process was subsequently delayed. According to Conanp, Samalayuca hosts 284 plant species and 154 animal species, including threatened reptiles.

Conanp will also reportedly accept public feedback to create a huge biosphere reserve of about 1.37 million acres in the municipality of Janos, which is located south of the New Mexico border. The Janos reserve would cover a biologically-rich zone that’s characterized by a mixture of pasture land, pine-oak forest and riparian habitat. The area is known to host a wild bison herd that moves between northern Chihuahua and Hidalgo County, New Mexico.

In a 2007 report prepared for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Rodrigo Medillin, professor of ecology for the National Autonomous University of Mexico, noted that protecting the Janos bison herd was a “top priority” of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a worldwide network of more than 1,000 governmental and non-governmental organizations.

Besides protecting plant and animal species, the establishment of federally-protected zones could allow local residents access to federal programs aimed at protecting the environment while fostering local participation and community economic development. In the past, Chihuahua state officials have mentioned Samalayuca as a possible eco-tourism destination.

No section of Conanp’s website is specifically devoted to receiving public comment on the Samalayuca and Janos proposals, but the e-mail address
desarollo@conanp.gob.mx is listed as the contact for the Mexican federal agency.

On a related front, Conanp, together with the Mexican Association for the Conservation of Natural Protected Areas, is co-sponsoring a four-day public conference about protected areas in Mexico next month. The meeting is scheduled to run from June 1-4 in the central Mexican city of San Luis Potosi.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez, May 11, 2009. Article by Juan de Dios Olivas. www.wcs.org, www.iucn.org.

The Political Ecology of Easter and Holy Weeks

Despite preliminary reports of a tourist drop-off of as much as 14 percent in comparison with last year, major Mexican resorts began filling up by Easter weekend. And reports of contaminated ocean waters did not seem to deter significant numbers of tourists from taking a dip off beaches in recent days.

Only days prior to the beginning of Mexico’s important two-week holiday season, the Federal Commission for Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) reported that waters tested at four beaches showed excessive levels of fecal bacteria, including Caletilla in Acapulco, Quimixto south of Puerto Vallarta, Playa Bagdad south of Matamoros, and El Malecon in San Felipe, Baja California.

Mexico’s Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) uses a quality standard of 301 enterococci per 100 milliliters of water to define a health risk to swimmers. On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) employs a far higher standard of 137 enterococci per 100 milliliters of water to define a health risk, according to the environmental group Greenpeace Mexico.

Water quality samples taken prior to March 31 and reported by Cofepris showed Caletilla was the dirtiest beach with 1,354 enterococci. Playa Bagdad in Tamaulipas earned second place with 532 enterococci, El Malecon ranked third with 520 enterococi and Quimixto came in fourth with 512 enterococci.

According to the WHO, exposure to fecal pollution can result in a variety of ailments and even serious diseases like infectious hepatitis or typhoid fever under certain circumstances. Certain populations including the very young, elderly, visitors and the immune-system deficient could be more vulnerable in dirty waters.

On the US-Mexico border, the binational environmental group Wild Coast has kicked off a campaign with local health and other authorities to give 1,200 free Hepatitis A vaccines to uninsured water-users of California’s Imperial Beach, where polluted water from the Tijuana River enters the ocean. A 2007 Wild Coast survey found that two-thirds of 130 Imperial Beach water users who entered the ocean at least once weekly reported getting sick after being in the water.

More Pollution Polemics

As is practically customary with ocean pollution reports that precede major Mexican holiday seasons, local officials in tourist-dependent destinations dismissed the news. Salvador Trevino Garza, director of sustainable development for the Tamaulipas state government, maintained regional recreational sites were free of contamination. Tamaulipas’ beaches boasted water quality that could not be beat, Trevino contended.

Archbishop Felipe Aguirre Franco, the politically outspoken Roman Catholic leader of Acapulco, called the timing of the Caletilla report “inopportune” and questioned the veracity of the Cofepris’ information since previous water samples gave the city’s tourist beaches a clean bill. Contradicting Cofepris earlier results, Semarnat reported April 7 that Caletilla registered 84 enterococci in a sample.

Interviewed by a Mexican reporter while visiting Caletilla, a tourist from Mexico City said she had not heard about the Cofepris report. But Maria Ramirez added that she doubted the water could be “so dangerous” since federal environmental authorities had not posted warning signs.

In Mexico, environmental and health authorities do not post beach signs warning swimmers or surfers of contamination, which typically comes from untreated wastewater discharges and run-off. A 2003 attempt to post warnings in Acapulco was short-circuited after a person or persons quickly stole the signs.

Even in the best of economic times, fears abound in tourist destinations that negative publicity about beach pollution will drive away dollars and pesos.

Environmental experts caution that ocean water quality can change on a daily or even hourly basis, depending on factors including wastewater discharges, weather conditions and ocean currents. The locations and frequency of sampling also determine the accuracy of water quality assessments.

According to Sabas de la Rosa Camacho, director of the Guerrero Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources, state and federal officials have monitored water quality in Acapulco area beach waters every 15 days since last year. De la Rosa also joined the official chorus rejecting reports of water contamination.

The Mexican environmental groups Consumer Power and Greenpeace Mexico, however, charged government beach water pollution reports seriously downplayed beach pollution problems. In a statement, Greenpeace Mexico noted that Semarnat’s most recent beach contamination report did not include information for 68 percent of Mexican beaches between the period of December 2008 and March 2009, the winter tourism high season.

According to the green group, some beaches had alarming levels of fecal bacteria, including Veracruz’s “Acuario” beach, where a sample of 120,000 enterococci was drawn.

“The lack of precision and transparency of Semarnat’s information puts tourists at risk,” said Greenpeace Mexico activist Julian Santamaria,“(Tourists) could suffer skin irritations, eye, ear and respiratory infections, upset stomachs and diarrhea from gastrointestinal infections from being exposed to beach waters with high amounts of enterococci.”

Semarnat did not issue an immediate public response to Greenpeace’s statement, but an examination of the federal agency's web site did reveal some updated information for April 7. However, information was still lacking for important tourist beaches like La Ropa, La Madera and Las Gatas in Zihuatanejo Bay, Guerrero.

Earlier this year, local media in Zihuatanejo ran stories about untreated wastewater polluting the waters off La Ropa, while a widely-seen newspaper photo depicted a mysterious pool of green gunk floating around the visiting Oosterdam cruise ship.

Cofepris’ website featured the results of five samplings done at beaches in Zihuatanejo Bay between January 12 and April 6, including La Ropa, La Madera, Las Gatas, and Playa Principal. All got good marks under both Mexican and WHO water quality standards, except Playa Principal which showed exceedances of WHO standards on January 12 and February 12, when samples detected more than 200 and 305 enterococci, respectively.

For April 7, Semarnat reported that Zihuatanejo’s El Almacen beach, which was practically destroyed by a previous tourist development and is hardly visited today, registered 1,829 enterococci. Curiously, the environmental agency detected only 20 enterococci at Playa Prinicipal, a beach extremely close to El Almacen that is heavily used by tourists.

In addition to wastewater discharges, beach resorts like Acapulco, Ixtapa- Zihuatanejo and Puerto Vallarta face serious problems with trash disposal during the Holy Week-Easter holidays. One story this week reported that garbage cans in Ixtapa were quickly filled up by the morning and even left out overnight, odors emanating from the waste.

Whose Beach is This?

Located a few miles from Zihuatanejo Bay, Ixtapa’s beaches become contested space between well-established merchants, informal sellers and low-budget campers during the Holy Week and Easter holidays.

Often to the displeasure of members of the local tourism industry, beaches are saturated with thousands of low-income visitors who arrive for day-trips or camp-out in tents and in cars for free. On Playa Linda, visitors bring along grills and portable television sets to enjoy their stays. A reported threat from the Zihuatanejo municipal government to evict the campers and move them to a commercial trailer park prompted an outcry from some tourists this year.

An advocacy organization even emerged to defend the spend-thrift visitors. Rafael Vazquez Covarrubias, president of Mexico United for Beaches, said local authorities had no right to order campers off beaches that are the management responsibility of the federal government.

“Tourists come to camp out on this beach by tradition,” Vazquez said. “Now, with an action that is not regulated under federal law, a municipal employee proposes to do away with the right of society to enjoy its beaches…”

Beach camping is also now a tradition at Miramar Beach in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Jaime Posadas Lara, president of the Miramar Beach commission, estimated between 35-40,000 people set up their tents in the sands during Holy Week. Posadas said great amounts of trash were then left to clean up.

Meanwhile, On the Banks of the Ole Rio Grande

Far from any ocean beach, holiday travelers in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, faced a different sort of environmental problem this year. For almost two days beginning April 7, hundreds of travelers were delayed or stranded at the city’s airport because of an industrial fire that spread to four maquiladora export plants and sent thick puffs of smoke into the sky. Affecting air quality, the smoke drifted across the Mexico-US border and into El Paso’s Lower Valley. More than 2,000 maquiladora workers were idled by the disaster, though no life-threatening injuries were immediately reported.

Hector Sandoval Quesney, municipal director for environmental regulation, blamed illnesses reported by airport workers on carbon monoxide from the smoke. Five days after the blaze, the full extent of environmental and property damage from the fire was still not publicly known. Nor has there been an official announcement of whether the fire was accidental or intentional.

The Holy Week disaster exposed the environmental hazards inherent in a pattern of industrial and residential development in which factories that use toxic substances are located close to public facilities and residential neighborhoods. Released in 2006, the Ciudad Juarez Atlas of Natural Disasters warned that 24 industrial parks in the city posed significant risks to 23,625 residences and 159,000 people because of the locations of plants and their inventories of flammable liquids, gases and chemicals used in production processes.

The April 7 fire that began at the MCS plant also laid bare serious shortcomings in the city's emergency response system. Local press stories revealed that MCS and other maquiladoras were not connected to the municipal water system and expected to rely on their own water supplies, which were not adequately stored at the industrial park where MCS is located. Other stories reported that only 50 percent of the big border city is covered by fire hydrants, many of which are in disrepair.

Local media also reported that the Ciudad Juarez fire department lacks not only advanced equipment, but has a great number of fire trucks in the mechanic's shop or not in use. For a city of about 1.3 million people, Ciudad Juarez counts on a fire-fighting force of 215 people. Neighboring El Paso, with a population slightly more than half the size of Ciudad Juarez’s, has almost 900 firefighters- a number El Paso fire officials still regard as below the ideal force size.

Unidentified Ciudad Juarez fire fighters who preferred to remain anonymous told one reporter the MCS fire seriously stretched their department’s resources. A recent report presented by the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, warned of the tendency of developing nations to scrimp on emergency response budgets as a way of coping with the international economic crisis.

Sources: La Jornada/Notimex, April 11, 2009. Norte, April 9,10, 11, 12, 2009. Articles by Luis Carlos Ortega, Salvador Castro and Nohemi Barraza. El Diario de Juarez, April 10, 2009. Articles by Juan de Dios Olivas, Pedro Sanchez Briones and Horacio Carrasco. El Sur, April 10, 2009. Articles by Karina Contreras, Noe Aguirre Orozco and Magdalena Cisneros. Despertar de la Costa, March 3 and April 9, 2009. Articles and photo by Francisca Meza Carranza and editorial staff.

Lapolaka.com, April 8, 2009. La Jornada (Guerrero), April 7, 9 and 10, 2009. Articles by Citlal Giles Sanchez, Francisca Meza Carranza and Cindy Pacheco Palacios. Enlineadirecta.info, April 6 and 11, 2009. Articles by Benny Cruz Zapata and Omar Lara Martinez. El Universal, April 3 and 11, 2009. Articles by Noemi Gutierrez and correspondents. Greenpeace.org.mx, April 6, 2009. Press statement. San Diego.com, March 26, 2009. Article by Emily Vizzo. Semarnat.gob.mx. Cofepris.gob.mx. WHO.org

Toxic Smoke on the Border

For the third time in less than a week, an industrial fire scarred the skies of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Tuesday’s fire at the MCS (ex-Zenith) plant near the city’s airport sent huge columns of black smoke climbing into the heavens and drifting across the borderland. The blaze spread to factories belonging to the Foxconn, Cormex and Dometic companies, temporarily idling about 1,000 workers. The disaster also caused delays and evacuations at the Ciudad Juarez airport.

As the fire raged on April 7, Ciudad Juarez fire commander Guadalupe Sandoval Castro warned the situation was “critical” due to the presence of wood, resin and plastic at the MCS facility, which manufactures wood and aluminum products. Firefighters feared an explosion from a large tank containing Freon.

Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz ordered the evacuation of all persons within 1,500 feet of the conflagration. The fire’s smoke impaired visibility in and around Ciudad Juarez, and city authorities later ordered several brick-making businesses to suspend operations in order prevent air pollution from worsening.

In addition to as many as 80 firefighters, personnel from the Mexican army, Red Cross and Ciudad Juarez water utility responded to the disaster scene. Firefighters were nevertheless hampered by a lack of equipment, according to Mexican press accounts. Local officials appealed to El Paso Mayor John Cook for assistance, but the El Paso Fire Department determined there was not much it could do since the fire was too far advanced and too far removed.

“It would have made no sense for us to go out there,” said fire department spokesman Lt. Mario Hernandez.

El Paso and Ciudad Juarez have an agreement under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Border 2012 program to give mutual notification in the event of hazardous materials emergencies, and to engage in joint training.

It was not immediately disclosed if the MCS fire was an accident or an act of arson. No initial estimates of property damage were released either.

This week’s fire was preceded by an April 3 blaze that burned up a warehouse holding toxic-containing computer equipment for the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ). Another fire in recent days affected a factory operated by the Fanosa company.

Prior to the MCS fire, a former director of Ciudad Juarez’s ecology department urged authorities to make sure companies were following best management practices. Biologist Alma Figueroa said industrial fires in the city could cause soil contamination and other environmental damages.

Bernardo Escudero Ortega, current director of the municipal ecology and civil protection department, said MCS could be subject to sanctions if it is determined that the company did not adequately take care of flammable materials.

Sources: Lapolaka.com, April 7 and 8, 2009. El Diario de Juarez, April 8, 2009. Articles by Blanca Carmona and editorial staff. El Paso Times, April 8, 2009. Article by Stephanie Sanchez. Norte, April 7 and 8, 2009. Articles by Salvador Castro and Carlos Huerta.

Official Warns of Dangerous Fire Season

Mexican Secretary of the Environment Juan Elvira Quesada has sounded the alarm bell over the potential for a particularly bad forest fire season in 2009.  Speaking at a ceremony outside the Mexican capital this week, Elvira warned that a combination of dry weather conditions, combustible materials and unusually high temperatures could spark many blazes in forests across his country.

In an effort to prevent fires, Elvira said his agency will push legislation to prohibit throwing cigarette butts on highways. Ten percent of forest fires in Mexico are caused by tossed cigarette butts, according to the Calderon administration’s top environmental official.

“A match in the forest is an issue of national security,” Elvira said, adding Mexico will spend about $35 million this year to combat forest fires. Elvira characterized the sum as a wise investment since the monetary value of saved resources comes out to 12 times the amount of the initial budgetary outlay.

Jose Cibrian Tovar, director of the National Forestry Commission, attributed 98 percent of forest fires to human causes, especially the persistence of slash-and-burn agriculture. According to Cibrian, 974 forest fires affecting more than 11,000 acres have broken out in Mexican forests since the beginning of the year.

Elvira pointed to the months of March and April as a critical period because of expected high temperatures. Mexico’s National Meterological Service has identified the northern border states of Baja California, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon as among the entities where possible extreme temperatures could turn forests into tinder boxes.

Due to the proximity of forests to the Mexico-US border region, government agencies in both countries maintain cooperative, cross-border fire-fighting programs. In addition to causing actual destruction on the ground, forest fires along the border contribute to worsened air quality in the two countries.

Source: La Jornada, March 5, 2009. Article by Angelica Enciso L.

NAFTA Commission Gets GM Corn Complaint

Mexican farm and environmental groups have filed a complaint with theenvironmental side commission of the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA)over the importing and planting of genetically-modified corn seedsin the northern state of Chihuahua. The groups pursuing the complaint withthe Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation of NorthAmerica (CEC) include Greenpeace Mexico, Frente Democratico Campesino,Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres, and El Barzon Chihuahua.

Currently, the planting of transgenic corn is illegal in Mexico.Aleisa Lara, spokesperson for Greenpeace Mexico, said the coalition tookits grievance to the CEC alter exhausting all legal avenues in Mexico.“That’s why we ask the CEC to gather a record of facts, because of thelack of an effective application of Mexican environmental law and the existence of a systematic pattern of illegal plantings of genetically-modified corn seeds in Chihuahua,” Lara said.

In 2008, Mexico’s federal agricultural department confirmed the discoveryof 180 acres of transgenic corn growing near Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua.Calling the find a “grave crime,” federal authorities said they turned thematter over to the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office forprosecution.

But native corn advocate Maria Teresa Guerrero, director of the ChihuahuaCity-based non-governmental organization Community Technical Consultants,later said more than 250,000 acres in Chihuahua might have beenunwittingly contaminated with transgenic corn seeds and the harvest shipped throughout the country, thus jeopardizing the integrity of a crop that’s provided Mexicans with culinary and cultural sustenance for thousands of years.

Chihuahua state legislator Victor Quintana, who also serves as advisor tothe Frente Democratico Campesino, accused authorities of activelycolluding with US transgenic corn seed planters and exporters to introducean illegal crop into Mexico. Quintana said the transactions violatedMexican federal law as well as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.In 2002, the CEC released findings from an investigation into thecontamination of native corn in the southern Mexican state of
Oaxaca.

Under its current set-up, however, the CEC does not have the power toissue obligatory rulings to the governments of the three NAFTA memberstates.Instead, the CEC conducts detailed investigations and writes reportsassessing whether a given nation’s environmental laws have been dulyfollowed. Though the CEC lacks authority to enforce its findings or levysanctions, the parties pursuing the Chihuahua transgenic corn case saidthey sought the environmental commission’s involvement in the controversyas a way of sending a message to Mexican authorities.

The CEC can either reject the coalition’s complaint or decide to compile arecord of findings for delivery to Mexico’s federal government.Sources: Agencia Reforma, January 27, 2009. Article by Daniela Rea. LaJornada, January 27, 2009. Article by Angelica Enciso L.Ecoamericas.com, November 2008.

Will the Border Wall Stand?

As the Bush Administration enters its final weeks, pressure is building to halt construction of the Department of Homeland Security’s unfinished US-Mexico border wall. The controversial project, which was originally slated to be completed by December 31 of this year, is the target of reinvigorated opposition from border residents, elected officials, indigenous communities, human rights activists, and environmentalists. Buoyed by changes coming to Washington, border wall opponents are stepping up their lobbying of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team to ensure the fencing is halted and even reversed.

In a letter sent to members of Obama’s Department of Interior transition team this week, the Lipan Apache Women Defense group of south Texas requested an end to fencing, demanded a halt to “illegal” seizures of border communities’ properties and appealed for respect of the rights of indigenous people.

In a telephonic press conference with reporters, tribal member Margo Tamez said fencing on the Lipan Apaches’ lands would constitute a gross violation of the human rights of land-based people who depend on border and river access for the collection of medicinal herbs and other cultural practices.

Tamez charged that the US government’s planned fences, border checkpoints and other measures are “criminalizing” her people. Indigenous lives, Tamez asserted, are being “radically altered” by the burgeoning border security complex. “We are assumed to be the criminals on our lands,” Tamez said “We belong the lands, and the lands belong to us.”

Tamez’s mother, Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez, credited public opposition to the border wall for preventing any construction on her land so far. Garcia Tamez said the border fencing planned near her home in El Calaboz Rancheria would actually be built one mile north of the Rio Grande boundary between Mexico and the US. Adding she first met Barack Obama during a campaign stop early last year in Brownsville, Texas, Garcia Tamez said she hoped the president-elect would prevent any additional fence construction.

“That is my hope, that is my prayer,” she said.

As an Illinois senator, Obama voted for the 2006 Secure Fence Act that paved the way for the current round of border fencing. A border wall critic, however, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, has been nominated to serve as Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security. If confirmed by the Senate, Napolitano will have a critical role in the fate of the project.

The Opposition Expands

Lipan Apache border wall opponents are supported in their stance by many national and regional organizations, including the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, International Indian Treaty Council and Alianza Sin Fronteras.

The Lipan Apaches Women Defense group’s letter followed a similar appeal this month to Obama by elected officials from El Paso, Texas. Initial signatories of the El Paso letter included Texas state Senator Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso), El Paso city Councilman Steve Ortega and US Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-El Paso). Reyes is a former Border Patrol sector chief for the El Paso area.

Citing close trade relationships with Mexico, as well as the economic and budget crisis, the letter urged the president-elect to “stop building these ill-conceived walls founded in current notions of racism.”

In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Sen. Shapleigh said he would like to see the new president “tear down this wall” and construct a new friendship with the Americas “like we have seen under Kennedy.” The El Paso Democrat, who plans to travel to Washington next month to press the message conveyed in the letter, added that the sooner the wall is torn down, the better.

“If not tomorrow, in a month,” he said. “If not in a month, in three months, but the important thing is begin with a strong and united border voice to make a new era in Washington, D.C.”

On Capitol Hill, legislation to consider alternatives to border fencing is still pending in the House. Sponsored by Representative Raul Grijalva (D-Az.), H.R. 2593, the Borderlands Conservation and Security Act, proposes repealing Section 102 of the REAL ID Act that gives the DHS authority to waive laws for the border fencing, expanding local, state and tribal participation in border infrastructure decision-making, and funding initiatives to help mitigate damages from fencing to wildlife and cultural resources.

Inside the beltway, organizations like the Sierra Club vow to make the border wall an issue the new administration must reexamine.

“We’ll be looking to President Obama and Secretary Napolitano for that leadership,” said Michael Degnan, the Sierra Club’s Washington representative for national forests and wildlife.

The Sierra Club earlier joined with Defenders of Wildlife in an unsuccessful lawsuit that challenged the authority of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to waive dozens of environmental and other laws in order to proceed with the border wall construction.

“The beauty of democracy is that we do have the opportunity to make a difference,” Degnan said, “and that’s what we’re looking to do. We need to repeal this waiver.”

The Bush administration and border wall supporters insist the 670 miles of planned pedestrian and vehicle barriers are needed to stem drug trafficking, stop terrorism and curb illegal immigration. A recent blog posting linked to the Washington, D.C.- based Center for Immigration Studies website captures the sentiments of many border wall supporters. Titled “Better Get That Wall Built” the posting consisted of a news summary of criminal violence in Ciudad Juarez and northern Mexico, including the November 13 murder of El Diario de Juarez reporter Armando Rodriguez.

In border areas where construction is underway, work crews have been busy in recent weeks. As of mid-November, the United States Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP), the division of DHS responsible for overseeing the fencing, stated on its website that about 375 miles the planned fencing and vehicle barriers had been completed. Less than five weeks later, on December 18, the DHS said more than 520 miles of barriers were done. The latest number means that about 145 miles of barriers were erected in a few weeks, according to the federal government.

CBP spokesman Lloyd Easterling recently told Frontera NorteSur that the government planned to have “90 or 95” percent of the fencing terminated by the end of December. The pace of construction, Easterling maintained, has been a "huge feat" so far.

Although the fencing is unfinished, Easterling said no further appropriations for the fencing will be requested from Congress. Earlier this year, the DHS was allowed to reprogram $400 million to cover cost overruns. Depending on the source, the total price tag for the massive project is estimated from $2 billion to $49 billion. Bills for maintaining the fencing from erosion, flooding, wear and tear, and other damages are expected to considerably push up the wall’s cost over time, according to many analysts.

Legal Challenges Move Forward

In addition to political opposition and civil disobedience, exemplified by the arrest of activist Judy Ackerman, who physically blocked a construction crew south of El Paso last week, the fencing project continues to face multiple courtroom challenges on constitutional and other legal grounds.

The County of El Paso, for instance, filed an appeal in its lawsuit with the US Supreme Court earlier this month. On another front, the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid (TRLA) are defending individual landowners, including Lipan Apaches, in property condemnation proceedings pursued by the federal government.

A big issue in the landowner cases is the 2008 Appropriations Act, which requires the DHS to consult with property holders to reduce the impact of walls on cultural, environmental and economic resources. Mandated by Congress, the consultation process between south Texas landowners and the DHS has been a thorny one so far, with federal officials, landowners and members of the Texas Border Coalition, a group of elected officials opposed to the wall, disagreeing over the scope, timing and make-up of the consultations.

Jerry Westervich, an attorney for TRLA who is defending two landowners in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, said he is trying to make sure the federal government complies with the 2008 law. “We have no idea what President Obama will do when he has the keys to the bulldozers,” Westervich maintained.

A group of legal activists based at the University of Texas (UT), meanwhile, is exploring national and international law issues as they relate to the border wall, including the equal protection clause of the US Constitution.

Jeff Wilson , an assistant professor of environmental science at the University of Texas-Brownsville and a member of the UT law group, said researchers studied census data for Texas’ Cameron County to compare the socio-economic characteristics of border residents who would and would not be directly impacted by the fence construction.

Research revealed that that lower-income Latinos, especially immigrants, are disproportionately targeted for fencing on or near their properties, Wilson said, but more affluent residents and businesses such as River Bend Resort would actually escape having fences run through their lands.

Denise Gilman, a UT clinical law professor who is also a member of the activist group, said student and faculty activists delivered a report on the border wall to the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. last October. Commission members are very concerned about the wall’s effects on cultural rights, Gilman said, but can’t take any action until domestic avenues for redress are exhausted. Criticizing the DHS’ project for lacking accountability and transparency, Gilman contended that the federal government has not fully responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the UT law group last April.

Gilman told reporters that Washington finally sent her group a copy of the main border wall contract with the Boeing company this month, but sub-contracts and payment information which were also requested under the FOIA were not delivered. Asked if contract lock-in provisions that could tie Washington's hands regardless of the incoming administration’s policy desires were an issue, Gilman said, “It’s an area of concern.”

-Kent Paterson

New Plan to Save Baja Porpoise, Promote Local Economies 

A trinational plan to save the world’s most endangered marine mammal was announced by the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) this week.  At the request of the governments of Mexico, Canada and the United States, the CEC drafted the North American Conservation Action Plan aimed at rescuing the threatened vaquita (Phocoena sinus) from extinction.  

According to the CEC, which was established as an  environmental information clearinghouse and environmental policy advisory body under the North American Free Trade Agreement, only 150 vaquitas remain in the Upper Gulf of California, the world’s only known habitat of the small porpoise.

If urgent action is not taken soon, the CEC warned in a press statement, the vaquita population could drop to 50 adults within the next two years. Although previous plans to save the vaquita have been hatched in Mexico, conflicts with fishermen from the communities of San Felipe, Golfo de Santa Clara and Puerto Penasco, Sonora, have complicated species preservation efforts.

According to the CEC, working with indigenous communities to create “vaquita-safe fishing methods” and sustainable economies is an essential part of the new plan.

“The objective of the recovery efforts is for people who make their living from fishing to see the vaquita as an opportunity for economic and social well-being, and not a threat to their future,” said Adrian Vazquez-Galvez, executive director of the CEC.“In the end, only with the support of Upper Gulf communities can we achieve vaquita recovery  and the conservation of the region’s marine resources as a whole.”

Perhaps an unforeseen factor in the vaquita’s survival and recovery was reported by Arizona media  last week. With public and private investor funds, the Mexican government plans to begin construction of a large cruise ship terminal in Puerto Penasco next year. When finished, the new home port could handle upwards of 200 big boats every  year.

The CEC’S conservation plan encompasses research, monitoring and assessment, as well as promoting public awareness about the role of the vaquita in a unique ecosystem. The entire conservation plan, in Spanish, English and French, is available on the CEC’s website at  www.cec.org.

-Kent Paterson

The Ojinaga-Presidio Tragedy

Responding to a flood emergency, three important US-Mexico border officials were killed in a plane crash in northern Mexico this week. Carlos Marin, Arturo Herrera and Jake Brisbin Jr. left El Paso International Airport September 15 to assess flood damage and help coordinate emergency relief efforts in the Presidio-Ojinaga area about 250 miles southeast of El Paso-Ciudad Juarez. The chartered aircraft carrying the men never arrived to its destination, prompting a search which located the small plane’s wreckage two days later. Pilot Matt Juneau and his passengers were then declared dead.

Marin and Herrera were the US and Mexico commissioners of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), a binational organization charged with overseeing US-Mexico water treaties and boundary issues. The IBWC is also involved in flood control, sanitation and other projects.

A 29-year veteran of the IBWC, Marin was appointed by President Bush to the head the agency in December 2006. Serving since 1989, Herrera was the longtime chief of the IBWC’s Mexican section based in Ciudad Juarez. Brisbin was the executive director of the Rio Grande Council of Governments, an association of local governments in Far West Texas and Dona Ana County, New Mexico.

The US section of the IBWC is under the authority of the US Department of State, which issued a somber statement after the ill-fated aircraft was discovered 23 miles northwest of Presidio and 13 miles into Mexico.

Roberta S. Jacobson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs for the State Department, praised Marin’s leadership. The official’s “expertise and gentle good humor,” will be greatly missed, Jacobson said.

Funeral services for Marin have been scheduled for Sunday morning, September 21 at the Crestview Funeral Home in El Paso.

In a phone interview with Frontera NorteSur, IBWC spokeswoman Sally Spener said   that her agency expected an acting US commissioner to be named “very soon.” Spener, nonetheless, characterized veteran IBWC chiefs Marin and Herrera as “irreplaceable.”

A former mayor of Marfa, Texas, Brisbin was described by several public officials as an effective advocate for rural and small communities in the Texas and New Mexico border region.

“He understood our problems because he came from a small community,” said Art Franco, mayor of Anthony, Texas.

As the border community mourned the loss of Marin and his colleagues, floodwaters from a swollen Rio Conchos watershed ravaged Ojinaga, Chihuahua, and threatened its sister town of Presidio, Texas, across the Rio Grande. Rob Ponton, Presidio County Attorney and spokesman for the emergency response operation, told Frontera NorteSur that water levels had reached 28 feet- three feet higher than those registered during the record flood of 1978.

In Mexico, six dams help control the Rio Conchos as it flows into the Rio Grande. The proximity of Presidio and Ojinaga to the two rivers’ junction puts the two towns at risk in the event of flood conditions.  Successful maintenance and management of Mexican flood control structures is of vital importance for both Mexico and the US, Ponton stressed.

By mid-September, hundreds of families were evacuated from Ojinaga, a town of approximately 25,000 people, as overflow from the Rio Conchos submerged four neighborhoods in water and destroyed up to 350 houses. Two government-run health clinics were likewise flooded. Traffic on a Mexican highway was halted, and the international bridge connecting Presidio with Ojinaga temporarily closed. Despite strenuous efforts, attempts to contain the Rio Conchos in Mexico fell short. 

“Time got the best of us and the work couldn’t be carried out as planned,” said Ricardo Espinoza, a Chihuahua state legislator for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). “The (National Water Commission) and equipment operators judged it necessary to leave the work areas for their own safety.”

Espinoza later said government agencies and civil society organizations would step up material relief collections and financial assistance for an estimated 1,500 flood victims.

Damages calculated in millions of dollars were reported in Ojinaga, but no deaths were immediately reported in the town. Snakes, spiders and turtles were all spotted haplessly floating in the floodwaters. Swamped with water, Ojinaga’s wastewater treatment plant sent sewage spilling into the Rio Grande, according to the IBWC.

On the US side of the border, flooding was initially less severe but still affected farmland in and near Presidio. On Tuesday, September 16, Presidio Mayor Lorenzo Hernandez ordered the mandatory evacuation of about 500 people from parts of the flood-threatened zone. According to Ponton, 100 people were temporarily sheltered at the Presidio Elementary School. The Red Cross, Salvation Army and a host of government agencies were all cooperating in assisting the victims, he said. 

On September 18, Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration for Presidio County and sent a letter to President Bush requesting a presidential disaster declaration that would free up federal funds.

The IBWC reported that various government agencies were involved in an effort to sandbag Presidio and save the town of about 6,000 people from greater flooding.  

Spener said that dozens of IBWC personnel were drawn from agency offices in Texas and New Mexico to pitch in with the Presidio operation. Spener ventured that work crews would be on the scene for some time to come. “We’re not out of the woods by yet by any stretch of the imagination,” she added.

Presidio County’s Rob Ponton concurred with Spener that serious work lay ahead for emergency responders. Although water flows were stabilizing by September 19, Ponton said that a rain-soaked Rio Conchos watershed was already backed up with three weeks’ worth of excessive water. Emergency crews, he emphasized, were laboring at a “very intense rate” to prevent a levee break in Presidio. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed it won’t happen,” Ponton said.

The disaster that struck Ojinaga and threatened Presidio was but the latest emergency to severely disrupt the states of Texas and Chihuahua during the 2008 rainy season.  While Texans pick up the pieces of Hurricane Ike, the effects of summer floods linger on throughout Chihuahua. In recent weeks, storms forced thousands of people from their homes in Parral, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez. The floods served as another rude reminder that living in an arid region offers no surefire protection against extreme wet weather.

Additional sources: International Boundary and Water Commission, September 17 and 18, 2008. Press releases.  Office of the Governor (Texas), September 18, 2008. Press release. El Paso Times, September 17 and 18, 2008. Articles by Diana Washington Valdez, Adriana Chavez, Ramon Renteria, and the Associated Press. El Diario de Juarez,  September 17, 2008. Articles by Silvia Macias Medina and editorial staff. Norte, September 17, 2008. Article by Angel Zubia Garcia. El Universal, September 15, 2008. Article by Manuel Ponce and Francisco Arroyo.  Lapolaka.com, September 5 and 17, 2008.

Judge Denies Request to Halt Border Wall Construction

In a major setback to critics of the Department of Homeland Security’s border wall, a  federal judge in Texas has denied a request to temporarily halt construction of the wall, which is fast underway in the El Paso area. Quietly issuing his ruling on Friday, August 29, just before the start of the Labor Day weekend, US District Judge Frank Montalvo turned down a request by the County of El Paso and other plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction.

Last June, the plaintiffs filed the request as part of a lawsuit that challenged the authority  of the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Michael Chertoff to waive dozens of federal environmental and other laws in order to pave the way for a new border fence.

In rejecting an injunction, Judge Montalvo cited, among other reasons, the 1996 immigration reform and other laws that gave broad powers to the Attorney General and later the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s contentions that undocumented immigrants cause environmental damages by creating new roads and trails, by leaving behind trash and by jeopardizing wetlands with invasive parasites and diseases.  

“After carefully considering the parties’ arguments, the Court concludes Plaintiffs fail to successfully develop their claim that preserving the waived laws outweighs the public’s interest in securing its borders..,” Judge Montalvo wrote.  

Despite the adverse ruling, the lawsuit continues in El Paso federal court.

“The case is not over yet,” said El Paso County Attorney Jose Rodriguez in a statement.  “This lawsuit involves an unprecedented delegation of authority by the Congress to the executive branch, because it allows DHS Secretary Chertoff to disregard long-standing federal laws that provide protection and benefits to the public and the environment.”

Elhiu Dominguez, press affairs officer for the county attorney’s office, said plaintiffs are weighing their options. Any appeal in the case will have to be made directly to the Supreme Court, Dominguez told Frontera NorteSur, but only after a ruling is made in the entire case. The danger, he added, is that the issue could become moot if the Department of Homeland Security completes the border wall by the end of the year as planned. “If the judge doesn’t schedule a hearing before then, that will be the risk,” Dominguez said.

In addition to the County of El Paso, other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the City of El Paso, El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1, the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, Frontera Audobon Society, Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, Friends of Laguna
Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, and Mark Clark.

-Kent Paterson

Big Foot vs. Climate Change

For a region that’s grabbed growing press attention during the past three years, the US-Mexico border was largely absent from the mainstream US media in recent days. Especially noticeable was the minimal coverage devoted to the annual Border Governor’s Conference, an event that draws governors and other high-ranking officials from both sides of the border who discuss policy issues vital to US-Mexico relations.

Indeed, the California press seemed more interested in a flashy press conference in which two men claimed to have recovered a Big Foot creature in Georgia. As “proof,” the pair displayed dubious photographs including one that appeared to resemble a banana wrapped in a tortilla, according to one account.

Held last week in Hollywood, California, this year’s border governors’ meet considered much less sensational but arguably far more serious topics. Mexican Environment Secretary Juan Elvira Quesada, for instance, proposed that the 10 US and Mexican states establish a voluntary, joint program to address the challenge of climate change.

“It is time the federal and state governments of both countries begin to cooperate and promote initiatives for mitigating and adapting to climate change,” Elvira Quesada said. Citing an agreement with the state government of California, Elvira Quesada said a broader cross-border plan could include greenhouse gas inventory reductions, simulations of regional climate change scenarios and impact analyses of climate-induced changes on the most vulnerable sectors.

Upholding the strategic economic importance of US-Mexico relations, Elvira Quesada urged both nations to invest in improved water infrastructure and deepen mutual support in confronting natural disasters like last year’s flooding in the Mexican state of Tabasco or this year’s wild fires in California.

Mexico’s top environmental official called for a secure, “better border” oriented towards “competitiveness and development” that will fortify the presence of the Mexico-US frontier on the world stage. To meet the water challenge in an arid region, Quesada proposed modernizing irrigation systems, recycling wastewater for agriculture and making water consumption more efficient in the cities.

According to Elvira’s press office, other priority environmental issues jointly affecting Mexico and the US include the Bush Administration’s border wall and the fate of the vaquita marina, an endangered porpoise in the Gulf of California.

Sources: Semarnat.gob.mx. August 13, 14 and 15, 2008. Press releases.

Analog’s Border Graveyard?

In many ways, Mexican cities along the country’s northern border resemble a second-hand store for old US goods.  Used autos and trucks, worn tires, hand-me-down clothes and countless other discards of the mass consumer society wind up in Mexican border towns in abundant quantities. Now, some environmental experts are concerned Mexico will become a giant dumping ground for analog television sets when the US goes digital early next year. Mexico is not expected to make the digital transition until a much later date.

“The problem is that a television set contains a great number of contaminants,” said biologist Alma Leticia Figueroa, a researcher with the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez and a former director of the municipal ecology department. “The screen, the plastic, all of it is polluting and requires special management,” Figueroa said. Old television sets contain heavy metals, fire retardants and other toxic substances.

While used TV sets will gain a lease on life in Mexico, many artifacts of the analog age could ultimately end up as improperly discarded garbage. The irony is that a surge of used televisions imports, which likely contain parts manufactured in Mexican factories, would violate the old principle that maquiladora plants return hazardous waste to their country of origin.

What’s more, boob tubes from across border could ultimately complicate Mexico’s larger problem with so-called e-waste, which also includes old computers, cell phones and other electronic gadgets. A 2007 study sponsored by the National Ecology Institute (INE) found that Mexico generates between 150,000-180,000 tons of e-waste every year. At the moment, the country is ill-equipped to handle its growing mountain of electronic trash.

Approved in 2003, a federal waste management law gives states and municipalities the primary responsibility for controlling e-waste.  It also allows for the recycling of e-waste. Many Mexican states have been waiting for a full assessment of their e-waste stream to enact  regulations.

On the other hand,   members of the private sector, academia and civil society  are promoting recycling. In Tijuana, for example, the Mexican Network for Environmental Waste Management (Remexmar) is helping organize public conferences and staging mass collections of used electronics products. According to Remexmar, the public brought 12 tons of e-waste  to a  Tijuana event late last month. 

Additional sources: Norte, June 21, 2008. Article by Herika Martinez Prado. La Jornada, December 24, 2007. Article by Angelica Encisco L. Ecoamericas.com, July 2007.

Ciudad Juarez Groundwater Depleted

A Mexican official added his voice this month to warnings that many environmental researchers have long sounded: Ciudad Juarez’s groundwater supply from the Hueco Bolson is steadily diminishing. Speaking at a meeting of the border city’s water department, Ruben Chavez Guillen, groundwater director for the National Water Commission, said more water is being extracted from the aquifer than is being recharged on an annual basis. While only 170 million cubic meters of water is being added to the Hueco Bolson every year, 254 million cubic meters of water is being pumped out,  Chavez reported. Depending on the zone, the aquifer has been reduced between 15 and 105 feet during the last 15 years, he said.

“Given the current condition of the aquifer, we can conclude that it is not sustainable,” Chavez said. “Not only is it being exhausted, but its quality is getting worse all the time.”
Although the Hueco Bolson still has a lot of water left in it, Chavez said much of the deep reserve contains concentrations of salinity far above what is considered fit for human consumption. Surface run-off of agricultural chemicals and other contaminants is    degrading the aquifer, he added.

“We have to be careful with the management of the surface water so that we are not adding another source of contamination from above that is more dangerous than the salinity” Chavez maintained. The Mexican groundwater expert urged the adoption of an aquifer management plan that involves all stakeholders. At the municipal level, Chavez recommended plugging water system leaks and reducing waste, making greater use of industrial recycling and readjusting utility rates. For the agricultural sector, which draws large amounts of water from the Hueco Bolson for the remaining farmlands in the Juarez Valley, he suggested converting to alternative crops while giving incentives to growers to modernize their irrigation systems.

“When we say water shortage, we are used to drilling more wells or bringing in outside water by means of an aqueduct, but little by little, this alternative is being exhausted, especially in a zone with such an extreme natural shortage,” Chavez added. “That’s why
we should work on the demand and not the supply.”

Transcending the US-Mexico border, the Hueco Bolson is an important source of water for neighboring El Paso, Texas. In 2007, the El Paso Water Utilities and the US Army’s Fort Bliss inaugurated a joint desalination project to turn brackish liquid from the aquifer into potable water. Unveiled as the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Facilities, the goal of the project was to provide an additional 27.5 million gallons of fresh water daily to the US side. Called the largest system of its kind in the world by the EPWU, the project cost  $87.5 million, according to the water utility.  

Ciudad Juarez, on the other hand, is pursuing a different strategy in compensating for the disappearing water from the Hueco Bolson.  Chihuhaua’s state government awarded a contract last year to a company owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to construct an aqueduct that will pipe in water from another cross-border aquifer, the Mesilla Bolson. An estimated $300 million is expected to be spent on the completion of the aqueduct project.  

Additional sources: El Diario de Juarez, April 24, 2009. Article by Javier Arroyo Ortega. Epwu.org

Border Dairies Need Remediation Plan

Situated in a fast-growing population corridor of the New Mexico borderlands, large comercial dairies have been a sore point of contention in recent years.
In the Mesquite-Anthony area of Dona Ana County just north of the Mexican border, residents complain of foul odors and large manure piles from dairies that count thousands of milk cows. Additionally, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) has traced groundwater pollution to local dairy operations.
According to the NMED, past discharges of wastewater from dairies have resulted in the excessive presence of nitrate, chloride and dissolved solids in groundwater.

Now,  the NMED is requiring 12 dairies to come up with a groundwater pollution remediation  plan. In a recent press statement, the environmental regulatory agency said the dairies, working as a consortium, submitted the first phase of an abatement plan to the State of New Mexico. The submission marks the first stage of a remediation program, since the dairies will be required next to come up with a concrete cleanup plan. The NMED did not give a specific timeline for the cleanup, but the agency  stated that the public will have 90 days to comment and request a hearing once the cleanup plan is received in Santa Fe.  

A study by the College of Agriculture and Home Economics at New Mexico State University reported that 53,000 milk cows were counted in Dona Ana County in
2006. Employment in the Dona Ana County dairy business reached 453 workers in the same year, according to the study. Although New Mexico  perhaps is better known for its legendary green chile, the dairy industry was the most valuable segment of the state agricultural sector by 2006, a year when dairy products brought in cash receipts which almost reached one billion dollars.  Nationwide, New Mexico ranked seventh in milk production. In the five-year period from 2001 to 2006, New Mexico’s milk production soared by 33 percent. In 2006 The Land of Enchanment produced 177 billion gallons of milk-about four percent of the US total.

Kent Paterson

Border Cetacean Faces Extinction

Mexican environmentalists and government officials warn that a unique marine mammal is in grave danger of extinction. Wildlife advocates express growing concern
over the fate of the vaquita marina,  a cetacean found only in the upper Gulf of California, or Sea of Cortez. According to the latest census findings, only 150 of the elusive creatures remain alive; the numbers represent a sharp drop from the
late 1990s when between 500-600 of the cetaceans were detected. Environmental officials and activists blame fishing activities for threatening the existence of the
vaquita marina.

“The elimination of the main cause of its mortality, which is the use of gillnets by fishermen, should be guaranteed,” said Adrian Fernandez, president of Mexico’s
National Ecology Institute.

At first glance an unlikely parent of whales and dolphins, the vaquita marina weighs about 100 pounds and reaches less than six feet in length. The first specimen was discovered in 1958.

To protect the endangered animal, Mexican authorities have decreed nearly more than two million acres of the upper Gulf of California and the Colorado River Delta as a protected biosphere. Nonetheless, fishing has continued in most of the reserve- with the exception of the delta area. Efforts to protect the vaquita marina have caused friction with native fishermen who depend on the sea for their survival.

In 2005, Mexico’s Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) signed an agreement with the State of Baja California to provide economic resources to fishermen in the community of San Felipe. As of October 15, 2007, 15 projects for 16 cooperatives had been approved as part of the accord.  Valued at approximately  $650,000,  the money was earmarked for the purchase of safer fishing equipment,
better boat motors, modern navigation devices and alternative economic development projects.

After a joint tour of the vaquita marina’s habitat earlier this month, Semarnat Secretary
Juan Elvira and Agriculture Secretary Alberto Cardenas announced an inter-agency initiative to invest another $10 million into conservation-alternative economic development projects aimed at helping the vaquita marina recover. Environmentalists caution that action cannot come too soon.

“It is urgent to avoid the extinction of the vaquita marina,” said Omar Vidal, Mexico director for the World Wildlife Fund. “The latest studies indicate that perhaps we have only one or two years to get this done.”

Sources: La Jornada, March 7 and 12, 2008. Articles by Angelica Enciso and the Reuters news agency. Semarnat.gob.mx Vaquitamarina.org

Opposition Solid to a New Border Waste Dump

Mass opposition continues to boil against plans for a large toxic waste dump near the Sonora-Arizona border. Granted a federal permit in 2005 by Mexico's Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), the planned  facility, known as Cimari, would have the capacity to handle upwards of 3,381,948 cubic meters of toxic wastes, with an estimated 45,000 tons of the hazardous substances expected to be processed each year. If the project attains final approval, Cimari will open its gates about 12 miles from the Mexican Tohono O'odham indigenous community of Quitovac and 18 miles from the Sonora border town of Sonoyta. 

Organizing on both sides of the border, activists in Mexico and the United States oppose Cimari on several grounds. Besides its proximity to sacred indigenous land, the planned dump site is near a desert biosphere, located close to earthquake-prone zones and situated in an area where mammoth fossils have been found. Anti-dump organizers fear a leak from a future toxic waste confinement facility could even jeopardize the Sea of Cortez and the tourist resort of Puerto Penasco. 

"Underground streams of water that are in the area where Cimari is proposed flow into the Sea of Cortez (near Puerto Penasco)," said Petra Santos Ortiz, a Sonora state legislator for the PRD party. " In the future (Puerto Penasco)  could suffer damage along with the world's greatest biodiversity of marine life, as Jacques Cousteau, the recognized French oceanographer, once rated the area."

Although Cimari has received positive nods from Semarnat officials and Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours, the project still has not received a critical rezoning permit from the local municipal government. The company behind the project, Cegire, has conducted three public meetings in an unsuccessful attempt to convince important sectors of the local population to back the dump.  

A reporter for the daily La Jornada newspaper tried recently to investigate the current status of the rezoning issue, but he received no return calls from Sonoyta officials or a response to a list of questions he sent them. 
 
As part of a national strategy for disposing Mexico’s growing mounds of hazardous wastes, Semarnat authorized three depositories during 2005-2006, including Cimari.  If constructed, the Sonora depository would be able to accept waste from US-owned companies operating in Mexico.

"I think that our struggle has been exemplary," said Rosa Maria Oleary of the Sonora-based Citizens Committee for Democratic Change, an organization that waged a battle against the now-closed Cytrar hazardous waste facility in Hermosillo during the 1990s. "The municipal authorities, indigenous groups, the public in general and even the local parish, together with environmentalists, have exercised a huge amount of pressure to prevent the construction of this dump, which was going to be used primarily by US companies."

Source: La Jornada, February 16, 2008. Article by Ulises Gutierrez Ruelas.

The Sharks of Ecotourism

In Baja California and other Mexican coastal states, ecotourism is promoted as an answer to declining resource-based economies and old school sun and surf-style visitation packages. Within the ecotourism sector, extreme sports activities are one variation of attractions designed to lure the dollars of affluent foreigners and Mexicans. But one form of extreme ecotourism, cage diving with sharks, is raising questions about the management of Mexico's natural resources as well as the safety and integrity of both humans and animals.

A remote chunk of land off the Pacific Coast of Baja California, Guadalupe Island is a hot spot for shark cage diving. Every year, one hundred of more great white sharks gather near the island, likely drawn by Guadalupe's tasty seals. In April 2005, Guadalupe Island was declared a protected biosphere by the federal Mexican government. However, the reserve lacks governmental or medical facilities.

Guadalupe Island's lack of infrastructure hasn't stopped several San Diego-based tour operators from offering adrenaline-spiked encounters with the magnificent if potentially deadly great white sharks. Running expeditions from the port of Ensenada, Baja California, tour boats ferry as many as 22 people on shark-seeing adventures. Advertised on the Internet, five or seven-day Guadalupe Island packages range from $2,750 to $4,295 in price. Once near the island, tourists don diving gear and are then put into cages from where they observe great whites swimming near the enclosures. The circling sharks are attracted by bait, usually tuna, dangled from a line.

According to Mexican environmentalist and columnist Ivan Restrepo, a November 4 trip crossed the line in keeping sharks and people at safe distances. Restrepo reported in a recent column that a great white shark snagged itself on a cage which contained two tourists, ripping apart an entire section of the "barrier."  Luckily, the two thrill-seeking tourists, who presumably got their money's worth, escaped harm.

Restrepo said a previous pilot study conducted by Dr. Jose L. Castillo Geniz, a researcher with Mexico's Regional Fisheries Research Center of Ensenada, resulted in recommendations to tour operators about where to place the bait and how to keep a prudent distance from the sharks.

"(Tour operators) promised to do it, but nothing more," Restrepo charged. "The lives of tourists and sharks continue being at risk."

The incident reported by Restrepo once again raised questions about the possible impacts of ecotourism on wild animals. Whale-watching, for instance, is an economic plus for coastal residents in the Baja,  Banderas Bay and other areas, but the popular activity poses important questions. When does the number of boats viewing animals reach a saturation level? How close is a safe distance from an animal? How do human-animal interactions alter the natural breeding, migratory and other patterns of wild species?    

According to Restrepo, Guadalupe Island's shark tourism brings in about $3 million per year for the tour operators, who pay nominal permit fees  to Mexico's Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.

"The business of taking tourists to watch white sharks on Guadalupe Island is an excellent one for a small group from the neighboring country," Restrepo wrote, "but not for the natural reserve, which lacks resources to establish a management plan, sponsor research or pay its personnel better..” 

On the other hand, tour operators maintain that their Guadalupe Island excursions help shield protected great white sharks from poachers, who hunt the endangered creatures for the lucrative global fin market. Recent reports estimate that the worldwide population of great white sharks has declined by as much as 70-90 percent.  A group of San Diego shark-watching tour operators has established the non-profit Guadalupe Island Conservation Fund to raise money for the preservation of the local shark population.

"Great whites are listed as endangered in Mexico; however there are no resources to dispatch park rangers in small enforcement vessels to protect them," said a statement from the Fund posted on its website.

Experts regard closer US-Mexico collaboration as essential for preserving the great white shark, which is an international traveler of excellence. After tagging a male great white shark with an electronic tracking device in early 2007, a cross-border team of researchers released the young predator into the ocean from the privately-owned Monterey Bay Aquarium in north-central California. Months later, the shark surfaced off the southern coast of Baja California near Cabo San Lucas.

"It clearly shows that like many migratory animals, sharks don't recognize international boundaries," said Dr. Salvador Jorgensen, a researcher with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Hopkins Marine Station. "It underscores how important it is to work closely with our Mexican colleagues to make sure we have adequate protection for the species," Jorgensen told a California newspaper.

Sources: La Jornada, February 4, 2008. Article by Ivan Restrepo. Monterey County Herald (California), May 23, 2007. Article by Kevin Howe. Guadalupefund.org   

Fumes from NAFTA'S "Junkyard"

For different reasons, Mexicans are warily anticipating the enactment of a federal government decree that will restrict the models of used cars which can be legally imported into their country. Expected to trigger on February 1, the decree will limit to ten years the age of used cars that can be introduced into Mexico for sale. The measure will replace an August 2005 regulation that permitted the importation of vehicles as old as 15 years. Additionally, the new rules will require that used vehicle importers pay the 15 percent value-added tax (IVA) on the declared full value of all units. Currently, importers are charged the IVA for only 30 percent of the declared value of the vehicle.

Fernando Avila Ortega, director of the Ciudad Juarez Association of Customs Agencies (AACJ) warned  consumers will feel a price pinch. The new rules will "severely hurt" automobile owners, Avila said.

Alberto Rivera Gutierrez, leader of a used car dealers' organization in Ciudad Juarez, said 25,000 local families who earn income from the sale of imported used cars could be economically squeezed by the federal restrictions. Rivera added that car sellers are analyzing the possibility of obtaining court orders to block the decree. He contended that car buyers will also be hurt by excluding many models from the marketplace.

"A factory employee will never be able to buy a car from a new auto dealership if the least expensive monthly payment is about $170, which implies almost four weeks of wages to make the payment," Rivera said. "The automobile is a necessity, not a luxury," 

Both Avila and Rivera predicted the new federal rule will encourage official corruption, boost the black market and diminish government revenue from legally imported used cars. 

AACJ statistics report that 170,539 used vehicles were legally imported into Ciudad Juarez from the US and Canada in 2007. Ninety percent of the imports were models more than ten years old. In contrast, 7,128 new cars and trucks were placed at auto dealerships in the city during 2007, according to the AACJ. 

Of 450,000 vehicles registered in Ciudad Juarez, 90 percent are older, dirty models acquired from Mexico's NAFTA trading partners, according to the Mario Molina Center, a non-governmental environmental advocacy organization. The Molina Center estimated that 63 percent of the imports are gas-guzzling vans and minivans, pick-ups and SUVs.

In a 2006 study, the Molina Center used detectors to measure auto emissions in Ciudad Juarez. Researchers found that used US imports emitted 50 percent more in contaminants of nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons and 38 percent more in carbon monoxide pollution than other vehicles. The environmental group reported that while only 2 percent of legally imported used vehicles were visually inspected,  not a single auto or truck was subjected to an emissions test at the moment of its entry into Mexico.  Federal Economy Minister Eduardo Sojo justified the pending used vehicle import restrictions because of environmental considerations and negative economic impacts on Mexican auto dealers who say they face unfair competition.

In 2009,   Mexico will be open territory for all imported used vehicles under the provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Next year's liberalization of used car imports has environmentalists worried. In recent comments, Economy Ministry chief Sojo insisted that strengthened environmental regulations for imported used cars and trucks will be ready by next year so Mexico doesn't turn into a "junk yard."

In October 2007, the federal Environment and Natural Resources Ministry began monitoring air contamination from vehicle emissions in northern border cities as part of a program to help local authorities design adequate pollution control programs. Tijuana and Mexicali were the first cities studied by environmental officials.

Used car dealers' spokesman Rivera argued that government policy should focus on the mechanical condition of each vehicle rather than singling out model age and stinging consumers with higher costs.  

In many border cities, sprawl coupled with inconvenient or unsafe public transportation favors the popularity of personal automobiles and trucks.  Proximity to the US assures a steady, brisk market for old autos, trucks and SUVs.

In fits and starts, some local governments are grappling with alternatives to the used car culture.  In Ciudad Juarez, for instance, the new municipal administration of Jose Reyes Ferriz has identified expanded public transportation as an important public policy goal. Two new bus routes from central Ciudad Juarez to outlying neighborhoods are planned for inauguration this year.

Wider implementation of a public transportation plan, however, is running into snags. Maria del Rosario Diaz Arellano, general director of the Municipal Research and Planning Institute, said completion of the final stages of a vital study is being held back by delays in the release of funds from an approved World Bank grant for $2 million.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez, January 29 and 31, 2008. Articles by Juan de Dios Olivas, Horacio Carrasco, the Notimex news agency, and editorial staff.
La Jornada, January 21 and 30, 2008. Articles by Angelica Enciso L.

Indigenous Groups Defend Mexican Corn

Meeting in Chihuahua's Sierra Tarahumara last weekend, representatives of more than 20 indigenous Raramuri and Tepehuan communities vowed to defend the traditional corn that nourishes their cultures and livelihoods. At the Third Annual Corn Fair held in Ejido Bacabureachi, indigenous leaders agreed to implement measures aimed at protecting their corn from genetically modified (GM) varieties. Among the proposals considered was a demand to require that any corn entering the Sierra Tarahumara for any purpose have a certificate of origin.

Maria Teresa Guerrero, director of the Chihuahua City-based Community Technical Consultants, a non-governmental environmental and indigenous rights advocacy organization, said indigenous leaders also agreed that more effective lobbying was needed to goad Mexican federal authorities into taking protective actions on behalf of indigenous communities. "Until now, (authorities) have only shown commitments with businessmen," Guerrero said.

In recent months, the introduction of GM corn has become a hot issue in northern Mexican border states.  Opponents fear that GM products will contaminate native corn species, as has already happened in different parts of Mexico, and with unpredictable, long-term environmental consequences.

On the other hand, a large group of corn producers in the states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Chihuahua is seriously mulling the massive planting of GM crops. The pro-GM farmers view the new crops as beacons of progress and promise that will help them survive the January 1, 2008 elimination of corn tariffs under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Reportedly, GM corn produces a much greater per-acre yield than traditional species.

According to Perfecto Solis, president of the Tamaulipas Corn Producers Council, farmers are growing frustrated by regulatory delays at the federal level in Mexico. Since 1999, Mexico has followed an official moratorium on the commercial planting of GM corn.

"We can't wait five years more, especially when we have been placed at a   competitive disadvantage with US corn producers," Solis said. "With or without regulation, we will begin to plant transgenic corn and, if necessary, we will recur to the use of force to defend our crops."

But indigenous corn growers in Chihuahua, who cultivate small plots less than seven acres in size, maintain that the agricultural future still rests with the old corn varieties adapted to the high and dry environmental conditions of the Sierra Tarahumara. Persistent drought in the region remains a major challenge for small farmers who rely on the rains. 

Speaking at the corn fair, Marcelino Moreno of Ejido Las Lajas  affirmed that traditional farming wasn't a mystery. "With the moon, as we always have done, as our elders did it, without chemicals and with a lot of work," Moreno advised. Other fair participants stressed organic fertilization and crop rotation as essential farming methods to ensure healthy harvests.

Bacabureachi resident Luz Maria said preserving native corn was indispensable for the survival of indigenous culture. "Don't let them do away with corn," Luz Maria appealed, "because if corn is finished, so are the people."

On a related note, the environmental group Greenpeace Mexico collected samples in Chihuahua in late November to test for the presence of genetically-modified organisms. Greenpeace’s  sampling took place in corn-growing districts of the municipalities of Namiquipa, Nuevo Casas Grandes, Buenaventura and Cuahtemoc.

Sources: La Jornada, November 13 and December 2, 2007. Articles by Matilde Perez U. and Miroslava Breach Velducea.  Americaspolicy.org, December 3, 2007. Article by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero.

The Border Responds to Mexico's Big Katrina

Stunned by the massive tragedy unfolding in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, US-Mexico border communities are pitching in to aid flood victims. In McAllen, Texas, the Mexican consulate kicked off a collection drive for material goods needed by more than one million displaced people. McAllen's Rotary Club, which plans on sending donated supplies to its sister organization in Tabasco, is also playing a part in the aid campaign. 

Stepping up to the plate, the state governments of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon sent three helicopters, medical brigades, water pumps and vital supplies. In Tijuana, meanwhile, newly-inaugurated Baja California Governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan instructed state officials to coordinate a supply collection.

In Reynosa, Tamaulipas, the Medalla Milagrosa Church organized an aid drive that focused on gathering material support from residents of the working-class Colonia Hidalgo neighborhood. Up the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo, the Red Cross set up a central collection point.

"This is the worst flooding that the Mexican Republic has experienced in modern times and it is important to stand in solidarity," said Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores while seeing off an aid convoy on Saturday, November 3. 

In Chihuahua, a state which suffers its own periodic bouts of flooding like the 2006 calamity that hit working-class neighborhoods in Ciudad Juarez, government agencies, political parties and non-governmental organizations urged citizens to extend a helping hand to Tabasco. In an initial gesture of solidarity, the state government dispatched a truck loaded with water and diapers for the flood zone. At intersections in Ciudad Juarez, state government employees were deployed to ask motorists for support.

Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza assessed the situation in Tabasco as dire. "To give us an idea, imagine 70 or 80 percent of Chihuahua City under water. That's how it is in Villahermosa," Gov. Reyes said.

On both sides of the US and Mexico border, government agencies and private aid organizations are urging people to donate goods as well as cash. Among the items most in need are bottled water, canned food, rice, flour, beans, diapers, sanitary napkins, soap, powdered milk, blankets, instant coffee, cookies, sugar, and clothes. As of November 4,  about  300 tons of goods had arrived to the disaster zone. However, observers on the scene considered the amount far from sufficient to meet victims’ needs.

In the Paso del Norte region, the Roman Catholic archdioceses of El Paso, Texas, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, earmarked $2,000 for the office of Tabasco Bishop Benjamin Castillo. Las Cruces Bishop Ricardo Ramirez said he hoped more aid from the US would soon follow the initial $2,000 donation. Judith Bryan, spokesperson for the US Embassy in Mexico City, announced that the US government will donate $300,000 in funds via the United States Agency for International Development.

In the United States, Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) opened two flood relief accounts in the Wells Fargo and BBV Bancomer USA banks.  "All the embassies and consulates of Mexico abroad have been instructed to maintain close contact with Mexican communities and to give punctual follow-up and attention to the aid offers that they receive," said the SRE in a statement. 

While border region residents are mobilizing to meet the most immediate needs of hundreds of thousands of displaced people, it's certain that major outside assistance will be required for some time. Tabasco Governor Andres Granier estimates that approximately fifty percent of his state's two million people have been driven from their homes. Health and other public officials worry about possible outbreaks of dengue, cholera and other diseases as the water recedes.

Economically, the flooding has largely wiped out Tabasco's agricultural and livestock industries. Cattle, cacao, sugar cane, banana and coconut destined for the Mexico City and foreign export markets have been lost. The National Campesina Confederation tagged the economic value of crop and livestock losses at nearly $500 million. To make matters worse, the Tabasco disaster comes at a time of rising food prices in Mexico and elsewhere. Overall damage estimates are currently in the $2 billion range.

Tijuana activist Esmeralda Siu Marquez, a representative of the Migrant Pro-Defense Coalition, predicted that many displaced Tabascans will be forced to find refuge in Mexico's northern border.

"The signs are not very good for our fellow citizens, and it's likely that once they are together with their families and find themselves without work and property they will have to look for a way of getting ahead," Siu said.

 The magnitude of the property destruction in Tabasco makes the disaster Mexico's greatest one since the 1985 earthquake which devastated Mexico City. Six days after the floodwaters struck, residents of the Tabasco state capital of Villahermosa are still being scooped up from rooftops; an estimated 80,000 people are still trapped in municipalities outside Villahermosa.  No deaths have been officially reported, but Governor Granier acknowledged that bodies could be discovered once the water recedes more. Arriving in Mexico City, flood refugees from Villahermosa affirmed that people had been killed in the disaster.

“Yes, there are dead and many bodies,” said Villahermosa resident Nora Montes. “We will have to wait for the water to go down to remove the bodies that must be in the flooded houses of Colonia Gaviotas Norte. A relative of mine saw the bodies of four adults and three children.”   

Sources: Univision, November 2 and 4, 2007.  Tiempo de Laredo, November 3, 2007. El Universal, November 3, 2007. Articles by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo, Natalia Gomez and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, November 3, 2007. La Jornada, November 3 and 4, 2007. Articles by Gabriel Leon Zaragoza, Triunfo Elizade and editorial staff.  Lapolaka.com, November 2, 2007. Frontera, November 2, 2007. Articles by Luis Adolfo San and the SUN news service. EnLineadirecta.info, November 2 and 3, 2007. Articles by Lina Rodriguez and Hugo Reynosa. Proceso/Apro, November 2, 2007. Article by Luciano Campos Garza. 

A Week of Smoke, Ash and Tears on the Border

US-Mexico border region wildfires continued to haze the skies over Baja California and threaten lives this week. In the worst incident, 4 dead people, three men and one woman, were found burned near a popular border crossing on the California side of the border. A 52-year-old man was reported killed October 21 in the Mexican border city of Tecate. At least 17 people were counted dead from fire-related on causes on both sides of the border by October 26.

Alberto Lozano, Mexican consul in San Diego, disclosed that 18 Mexicans suffered burns while trying to cross the California-Baja California border during the height of the fires. According to the diplomat, six of the victims were hospitalized in San Diego, with one 20-year-old man in grave condition. "While firefighters were putting out a fire on Monday, they found this group in the vicinity of the Otay Mesa mountains," Lozano said.

Joining a call made by the US Border Patrol, Lozano reiterated his appeal for Mexicans to avoid crossing the border while fires raged. Some immigrant smugglers, or so-called "coyotes," reportedly were using the fiery chaos as cover to sneak groups of migrants across the border. By Wednesday, October 24, the Border Patrol had detained 200 migrants for trying to cross the border in the fire zone.

In northern Baja California, municipal and state authorities issued health advisories due to the drifting clouds of smoke and ash that threatened public health. Authorities urged the public to restrain from exercising outdoors, and to not consume food sold in the street that could be contaminated with ash. Special precautions for the elderly and infants were emphasized in the alerts. Classes resumed in Tijuana, but state education official Juan Jose Ramos Aguilera said children should stay indoors as much as possible.

In the border city of Tecate, meanwhile, reactivated fires and heavy smoke clouds once again forced the cancellation of classes on Thursday, October 25.

Public health officials and academic researchers from both sides of the border stressed the health dangers emanating from the smoke and ash. "The air causes eye irritations, nose congestions and sore throats, and it impedes normal breathing and also affects the lungs," said Dr. Helene Calvet, a health official for the City of Long Beach, California. Physician Efe Barim Brara compared breathing the contaminated air with smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Mark Blumier, a professor at the University of Binghamton, contended that the local air could be laced with toxic substances from burning residences and structures. "Toxic chemicals coming from the burning of buildings that mix with the smoke form a toxic mixture which the residents of southern California should be aware of," Blumier said.

In Tijuana, researchers from the Autonomous University of Baja California
(UABC) immediately began setting up air quality monitors. The researchers planned to send collected data to Mexico's National Institute of Nuclear Research and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Based on lessons from similar fires in 2003, the university's Cesar Diaz warned that some people could suffer long-term respiratory problems.

Marco Antonio Sanchez Navarro, director of fire and civil protection in Tijuana, said environmental conditions on the Mexican side of the border were improving on October 26. “There’s still smoke, dust and ashes, but we will see cleaner air and with less contaminants from today until Sunday,” Sanchez said.

In a statement, Mexico's Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) reported more than 8,000 acres in Baja California had been consumed by fires at seven different locations. According to Semarnat, six of the seven blazes were controlled by October 25, with 166 government workers and volunteers still struggling to put out a large fire near Ensenada. Especially hard hit was the area near the settlement of Maneadero.  By October 25, nearly 500,000 acres had gone up in flames across the border in the San Diego and Los Angeles areas. Early property damage loss estimates in southern California were pegged in the neighborhood of $1 billion, but no similar estimates were immediately available for Baja California.   

Sources: Frontera, October 25 and 26, 2007. Articles by Laura Duran, Lorena Arellano and Manuel Villegas. El Universal/EFE, October 25, 2007. El Sur/AFP, October 25, 2007. Associated Press, October 25, 2007. La Jornada, October 25, 2007. Article by Antonio Heras, Matilde Perez, AFP and Reuters. CNN, October 26, 2007. NPR, October 26, 2007. Semarnat.gob.mx

Authorities Shut Down Ciudad Juarez Jungle Land

Until recently, well-heeled parents in Ciudad Juarez could have given their nagging, cat-crazy child a big surprise. For just $12,000, proud progenitors had the chance to bring home a beautiful, bouncing jaguar cub to their wide-eyed youngster. Informed about a young jaguar for sale at the popular Rio Grande Mall in Ciudad Juarez last Saturday, municipal police showed up at the Angel pet store and confiscated the wild cat along with a python and a pair of South American titi monkeys.   

City police quickly turned the matter over to federal authorities, who charged pet store operator Abel Gonzalez Pardo with trafficking and possessing threatened and endangered animals. Gonzalez faces a criminal trial while the federal Attorney General for Environmental Protection (Profepa) investigates the origin of the unusual pets. According to Martin Bermudez Mendoza, Profepa delegate for the state of Chihuahua, jaguars, as well as the other animals confiscated, are considered protected species requiring special permits under Mexican law.

"It is our objective to protect biodiversity and uphold the applicable international laws," Bermudez said. "It's great that people denounced this case, and we are beginning to work together with the Office of the Federal Attorney General."

But Gonzalez's attorney, Juan Fernandez Ordonez, insisted that his client did not break the law. Fernandez claimed the pet seller had all the necessary federal environmental, animal and customs paperwork. With regard to the jaguar, Fernandez contended the animal did not require special documentation under the international CITES agreement because it was obtained from a private breeder in Leon, Guanajuato, through a wild animal broker, Julio Cesar Perez Rivera.  

Demanding that his client be set free, Fernandez accused authorities of acting unprofessionally. If convicted on the federal wildlife charges, Gonzalez faces 9 years in prison and a hefty fine. The Profepa is conducting a separate administrative proceeding against Gonzalez.  Agency official Bermudez confirmed that the confiscated animals were in the care of authorities, but declined to disclose the creatures' location out of fear that the owners might try to recuperate their lost property. The Angel pet store raid is the latest case to come to light of exotic or threatened animals offered as pets in the borderlands and in Mexico.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez, August 21 and 22, 2007. El Paso Times, August 21, 2007. Article by  Daniel Borunda.

New Ecocides Sweep Mexico’s Coasts

Undergoing  rapid development, Mexico’s coastal zones-and its tourist beaches-face a deepening environmental crisis. Untreated wastewater, boat discharges,  discarded plastic bottles and bags, and streams of chemicals transported by rivers increasingly degrade the nation’s coastal waters. Massive resort developments,  new roads, commercial fish farms, countless condominiums and ubiquitous shantytowns lacking connections to municipal sewerage systems are stripping hillsides of vegetation, threatening mangrove estuaries and contributing to the waste flow into the ocean.

In a statement distributed on the Internet last month,  R.C. Walker of the Puerto Vallarta Ecology Group, contended that the recent conversion of four city parks into parking garages symbolized a development debacle.  “First the parks. Next the hillsides. Next the mountains,” Walker wrote. “Meanwhile, the beaches are being turned into high condominium towers. This is called ‘Acapulcoization‘.”  

The environmental assault is so widespread that places such as Puerto Vallarta and Cancun, which once enjoyed a “clean” reputation in  contrast to “dirty” old Acapulco, are showing increasing signs of contamination.

2007: The Summer of Sewage? 

While veterans of the hippie movement celebrated the 40th anniversary of San Francisco’s famed “Summer of Love,  day-trippers  who responded to the  promotional ads plastered on the hilly city’s buses that promised a memorable Mexican vacation might have actually ended up experiencing a bummer south of the border.  

In many places,  tourists coped with floating garbage, foul odors, and high levels of fecal coliform bacteria that can lead to skin rashes, eye infections, respiratory problems, stomach disorders, and diarrhea.  The World Health Organization (WHO) has established a health standard for the enterococcus bacteria of 100 parts  per 100 milliliters of water, but Mexico’s Health Ministry uses  a far more liberal standard for enterococci of 500 parts per 100 milliliters of water in establishing the supposedly safe exposure limit. 

Dozens of e-mails posted on Greenpeace Mexico’s website reported pollution pockets across the country. Alejandro Garcia of Matamoros charged that sediment was being dumped directly into the waters of the well-visited Bagdad Beach near the Tamaulipas-Texas border.  Paval Quiroz, a resident of Playas de Rosarito in Baja California,  called the municipal beach a “pig-sty” littered with garbage. Sonora Architect Julio Cesar Feliz  claimed that wastewater discharges into the Sea of Cortes were readily visible on the Internet’s Google Earth satellite program.

Drivers  who survived the rockslides and potholes that injured the family of singer Miriam last month and which have claimed dozens of lives since 2005 on the treacherous Mexico City-Acapulco Highway of the Sun could well have returned with less than sexy memories of the romantic port.  

“My brother left the water with a sanitary napkin on his head and almost vomited,” wrote Ana Maria Palacios. “While he was swimming, my cousin could not see because a bag of Sabritas got stuck on his face.” Guadalupe Botello of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, contended that  her daughters turned ill in  2005 and 2006 after Acapulco beach dips. According to Botello,  a severe bout of gastroenteritis. landed her daughter in the hospital for a 5-day stay two years ago. “The doctor explained to me: ‘your child swam in (feces)’,” Botello wrote.

In June, before the summer tourist onslaught, the  Ministry of Health reported  enterococci levels ranging from 705 to 934 at three Acapulco beaches-Hornos, Suave and Carabali.

In Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, tourists were treated to the spectacle of stinking wastewater entering  La Ropa Beach during the high season. According to a local newspaper, municipal water employees took one week to respond to the crisis.

“The smell is unbearable, and the children can‘t enjoy the water because it is super-polluted,” said Yolanda Rodriguez, a tourist from Mexico City. “Don’t let Zihuatanejo go downhill, because it is changing from a pretty, clean and safe place to one that  gives little desire of  a return visit.”

Losing  tourists is bad news for places like Zihuatanejo, especially at a time when Mexico has slipped behind Germany to eight place in the World Tourism Organization’s  ranking of favored world travel destinations.  For the third year in a row,  Mexico stagnated in 14th place in  the international organization’s rating of national incomes derived from tourism,  a trend that spells trouble for communities dependent on the industry.

In Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Greenpeace Mexico protested  unhealthy waters. Citing recent studies from the National Water Commission,  Greenpeace reported that the municipality of Puerto Vallarta contaminates picturesque Banderas Bay with 49,248  cubic meters of wastewater every day. 

Agricultural chemicals, grease and oil that flow into Banderas Bay from the Ameca River, a body of water that passes through the Guadalajara Metropolitan area, worsen the water quality.

Charging that the enterococci  recently detected in the waters of Puerto Vallarta’s Los Muertos Beach exceeded  World Health Organization (WHO) standards by 16 times,  Greenpeace activists closed down the beach on Wednesday, August 1, in a symbolic protest.

“This discharge is a health risk and is only one example of what is going on along Mexican coasts,” said Alejandro Olivera, Greenpeace Mexico’s ocean campaign coordinator.

In a previous statement, Greenpeace cautioned that no official information in Mexico exists about the presence of fecal coliforms in sand, an issue which has arisen in scientific studies conducted in the United States, Europe, Israel and New Zealand.  According to Greenpeace, one California study found that a gram of beach sand could contain enterococci levels as high as 10,000 parts per 100 milliliters of water.

An e-mail sent to Greenpeace from Alejandra Rodiles characterized  the Mexican pollution as part of a bigger ecocide afflicting the hemisphere: “From Acapulco to Vina del Mar (Chile), the most beautiful beaches of Latin America are becoming inaccessible to bathers due to the contaminating assault from different sources, above all from  discharges of used water into the sea.”

Nonetheless, dirty beaches are not an untidy  product unique to the “developing” world south of the US-Mexico border. In California, The non-profit  Heal the Bay group maintains a “beach bummer” list of the state’s polluted beaches on its website.  Local authorities are investigating the sources of contamination at places like Capistrano Beach in northern California, which has been permanently labeled by the San Mateo County Environmental Health Department as a potential health hazard.  Possible explanations for  a “Third World” pollution phenomenon in a state long viewed as the trend-setter for much of the modern world include bird poop and aging, leaking sewer lines.

 Mexican Authorities Respond

The Mexican pollution problems reported by Greenpeace certainly are not new. For the most part, neither are the responses of the authorities. Although ocean waters are part of the national patrimony,  municipal and state governments are responsible for building and maintaining wastewater plants. Consequently, efforts at reducing the fecal flow have been scattershot, varying  in investment, magnitude and commitment from place to place. Often, cash-strapped municipalities lack the budgets to replace obsolete plants or implement wastewater recycling programs.

Some observers attribute the lack of progress to the chaotic nature of Mexico’s municipal political system in which administrations and their personnel change every three years. Turn-over, cronyism and reinventing the wheel  define numerous political transitions.

In the fast-developing Nayarit Riviera  north of Puerto Vallarta,  sharp stenches and visible trickles of raw sewage into the waters of the internationally-known Sayulita surfing beach have welcomed tourists this year. In January, when snowbirds were flocking to the tropical beach even as an old wastewater treatment plant was sputtering its last breaths,  staggering levels of 3,968 enterococci were registered at Sayulita,  according to Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat). No health warnings were posted on the beach at the time.

Nayarit’s  state government,  which is working hard to lure more California tourists, has embarked on a wastewater treatment expansion project. Last month, Greenpeace held a meeting with Nayarit Governor Ney Gonzalez Sanchez and state Environment Secretary Edwin Hernandez Quintero to discuss the pollution problem. According to the environmental group, Governor Gonzalez agreed that a clean-up was in order.

“If the governor meets these commitments,  Nayarit will become an example,” said Greenpeace activist Olivera. 

In a recent interview with Frontera NorteSur,  Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado Macedonio
mentioned environmental clean-up as one of the priorities of his administration. The flamboyant mayor, who made headlines this summer for personally filling in potholes on the Highway of the Sun to goad the federal government into fixing the deadly road,  said  that Acapulco’s good credit rating renders the city eligible for international bank loans needed for infrastructure development. 

“We’re deserving of credit, and it seems to me all we need is the support of the state congress,” Mayor Salgado said. “We haven’t applied yet, but (loans) could be an element of interest to Acapulco Bay.”

Frequently , politicians and tourist industry leaders have reacted to the coastal eco-crisis by denying that one exists. In 2002,  while under the leadership of Victor Lichtinger,  Semarnat launched its own “Clean Beaches” campaign. The federal agency began posting 
fecal coliform test results on the Internet so tourists could judge for themselves the health risks they faced at  particular vacation getaways. Moreover, Semarnat attempted to post health advisories on dirty beaches.

The federal actions elicited howls of protest from state politicians and tourist industry leaders who accused Semarnat of trying to undermine local economies. To make their point, the governors of Veracruz and Guerrero splashed around in their state’s ocean waters to show the public that all was supposedly safe. Semarnat’s  signs were stolen from beaches, and Lichtinger was soon out of a job.

Semarnat’s critics accused the agency of complicity in a still-mysterious conspiracy to promote Cancun at the expense of other beach destinations,  a charge that still surfaces from time-to-time. Reacting to last week’s  Greenpeace beach protest,  Puerto Vallarta Mayor Javier Carbajal accused the green activists of trying to damage his city.

Since Lichtinger’s departure, water quality sampling results reported to the public have been periodic. During the summer 2007 tourist season, when sun-seekers risked  illnesses from swimming in potentially contaminated waters, Semarnat did not post current water quality data for the public to view on the Internet.  

In 2006, Semanart initiated a program of voluntary certification for Mexican beaches. In order to be certified as  clean, beaches have to comply with the stricter WHO water quality standards. Officials have so far submitted certification applications for about 10 of the nation’s 275 tourist beaches. The candidates for certification include beaches located in Baja California Sur, Sonora and Veracruz.

 Meanwhile,  Greenpeace Mexico demands that all Mexican beaches be required to obtain certification under the WHO standards. The group also calls for regular water quality sampling; the posting of health warning signs; appropriating special wastewater treatment  funds for municipal budgets; and improving wastewater treatment technology.

“Mandatory certification would bring the efficient treatment of wastewater to beach destinations and generate the conditions for making beaches truly clean and safe,”
Greenpeace’s Olivera said.
 

Additional sources:  El Despertar de la Costa (Zihuatanejo), July 24, 2007. Article by Juan Francisco Garcia. La Jornada, July 16 and 20, 2007; August 2, 2007. Articles by Ivan Restrepo, Javier Santos and editorial staff.  El Sur, July 2 and 29, 2007. Articles by  Mario Lopez, Ezequiel Flores Contreras and Agencia Reforma. Daily Journal (San Mateo), July 30, 2007. Article by Michele Durand. Greenpeace.org.mx. Healthebay.org.
Semarnat.gob.mx

Another Gas Explosion Rips the Border

International media reported widely on the spectacular bomb attacks against Pemex gas pipelines in central Mexico that were claimed by the Popular Revolutionary Army earlier this month. Less covered in the media are the natural gas explosions that occur with frequency in the borderlands. Unlike the Pemex attacks, which caused economic losses estimated in the millions of dollars but caused no human injuries, many other "accidents" reap human casualties.  Case in point: the July 16 explosion at a Ciudad Juarez Biogas company distributorship.

Initially blamed on employee carelessness, the Monday afternoon explosion caused three serious injuries and damaged dozens of nearby homes. The force of the blast broke windows, collapsed walls and sent flying gas tanks crashing onto roofs. Two employees of the Biogas distributorship, Juan Omar Gamino Avina and Manuel Medrano Medina, suffered burns, with Medrano reported in grave condition. A 66-year-old neighbor of Biogas, Virginia Reza, also contracted burns as she fled her home.

Biogas, which is operated by the Grupo Tomza company associated with businessman Tomas Zaragoza, operates a series of gas outlets throughout Ciudad Juarez that sell small tanks to customers for prices ranging from approximately $8 to $36. Ironically, a Ciudad Juarez newspaper that carried stories about the July 16 explosion featured an ad from Biogas in the same edition that promised "clean and reliable energy" to its clients. Biogas, the ad claimed, "Always takes care of your pocketbook and gives you more."

The explosion, which happened at an outlet erected between the Azteca and Independencia 2 working-class neighborhoods, immediately raised questions about the locating of gas distributorships in residential areas. Current federal Ministry of Energy regulations allow gas outlets to operate as close as 9 feet from residential zones, but the companies must obtain the proper permits.

Mario Roberto Chaires Almanza, Ciudad Juarez municipal director of urban development, said that the city does not have records of Biogas applying for a license to run the specific outlet that exploded. According to Efren Matamoros Barraza, chief of the municipal ecology and civil protection department, regulations that went into effect three years ago require gas outlets to obtain the permission of existing residents before setting up shop in a residential zone. Many businesses like Biogas were established before the new law, Matamoros added.

The Diario de Juarez and Norte newspapers reported that an official map of hazardous facilities in the city and neighboring Samalayuca lists between 18-21 natural gas distributorships, but does not even include the facility that exploded this week. In its recent ad, Biogas alone claimed to operate 30 outlets in Ciudad Juarez.
 
While the latest gas explosion focused attention on the proximity of gas distributorships to private homes, other incidents in 2007 exposed the vulnerability of working populations to potential gas disasters. Last February, three people were injured in Ciudad Juarez's central produce warehouse district by a gas build-up that turned into flames after a cigarette was lighted.

In March, a possible mass tragedy was averted in Chihuahua City to the south when more than 100 employees of a Honeywell factory were evacuated after heavy machinery ruptured a gas line. 

As a result of the July 16 explosion, municipal and state authorities ordered the Biogas outlet temporarily closed.  Jaime Tavarez Medina, Biogas manager, toured the damaged zone offering cash compensation to victims. Personnel from the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General (PGJE) and the Ministry of Energy were dispatched to investigate the exact cause of the disaster.

However, investigators soon discovered that Biogas employees had already wiped out potential evidence by removing debris and repainting a damaged structure.

“We came to see how the explosion happened, but we found that the (structure) had already been painted,” said PGJE official Nilda Seguro.

Neighbors demanded that Biogas not reopen in the same location. "We don't want the gas outlet here," said resident Emilia Chavira Mendoza. "We saved ourselves from this one, which was bad enough of a scare. Who knows about the next one?"

Sources: Norte, July 18 and 19, 2007, Articles by Francisco Lujan. El Paso Times, July 18, 2007. Article by Louie Gilot. Lapolaka.com, July 18 and 19, 2007. El Diario de El Paso, July 17, 2006. Article by A. Castanon and A. Mena. PM, July 17, 2007. Articles by Abraham Cervantes and Moises Villeda.  Frontenet.com, March 22, 2007. El Diario de Juarez, February 7, 2007; July 18 and 19, 2007. Articles by Blanca Carmona, Ramon Chaparro, Alfredo Mena, and editorial staff.   

President Hawks Eco-Development

Visiting Chihuahua on May 22, International Biodiversity Day, Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced a new environmental-economic development plan for the northern border state. In a speech delivered on the rim of Chihuahua's majestic Copper Canyon, President Calderon laid out some of the details of a joint federal-state initiative aimed at boosting tourism, reforesting the mountains and creating new natural protected areas. The announcement came at a time when the Mexican government and private developers are making a renewed push to promote the Copper Canyon-Sea of Cortez tourism circuit.

President Calderon's plan envisions spending more than $100 million dollars in the impoverished Sierra Tarahumara and other regions of the state on running water service, infrastructure development, reforestation, rural development, and temporary employment. In recent decades, indigenous communities of the Sierra Tarahumara have been besieged by illegal logging, narco-violence, drought and out-migration.

According to President Calderon, the Chihuahua state government is expected to pitch in about $30 million for infrastructure development in the mountains. In President
Calderon's estimation, the future of the Chihuahua forests rests with eco-tourism instead of the old logging industry. "You don't have to sell the tree, but you can sell the shade of the tree." said President Calderon, who paraphrased the municipal president of Bocoyna.

Environmental preservation and economic development are inextricably linked in Mexico, President Calderon said. Warning against the loss of the forests and water,
President Calderon contended that poor people will be the ones who pay the biggest cost. "What we have to do is take care of nature and close the path to poverty, and we have to the find the programs and means to do this," he added.

Paying landowners to preserve their land for "environmental services" is a key piece of the initiative. Under the terms of the federal Proarbol program, Chihuahua landowners will be paid about $42 million for providing environmental services. Currently, landowners are eligible to receive between $40 and $110 per hectare. According to President Calderon, nearly half the Proarbol budget for Chihuahua will be allocated to 1,234 indigenous Raramuri applicants who control approximately 8 million acres.

Additionally, President Calderon cited Mexico’s endorsement of a proposal before the United Nations to plant one billion new trees nationwide. Pledging that his country will account for a full one-quarter of the new plantings worldwide, President Calderon said that 11 million of the seedlings will be planted in Chihuahua. According to some recent estimates, about 800,000 acres of Mexican forests and jungles are cut down each year, with agricultural activities blamed for causing the bulk of the deforestation.

In his speech, President Calderon announced six new natural protected areas in Chihuahua, including more than 160,000 acres of the Samalayuca sand dunes near Ciudad Juarez. Also among the new protected areas is the Cano Biosphere Reserve, the site of Mexico's only wild bison herd as well as an important reproductive zone for black bears.

On his Copper Canyon visit, President Calderon was accompanied by Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and Environment Minister Juan Rafael Elvira Quezada.

Sources: El Universal/Notimex, May 22, 2007. La Jornada/Notimex, May 23, 2007. Office of the Presidency, May 22, 2007. Press release. Presidencia.gob.mx

Endangered Bird Makes Cautious Recovery

Once considered extinct south of the border, the massive California condor is on the road to becoming a truly cross-border bird again. Mexican environmental officials have announced the birth of a young condor to a reintroduced mother in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir of Baja California on April 20. The last known wild condors in Baja California disappeared about 20 years ago, but Mexico's National Ecology Institute (INE) began releasing condors back in the wilds of the border state four years ago. Eleven condors were obtained from a California zoo for the species recovery effort. Five more birds are expected to be released this spring.

The April 20 condor birth was greeted positively by wildlife officials. "Having a chick in the nest of a young couple is an indication that the reintroduction project of
the California condor in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir is on the right path," said project leader Mike Wallace. According to the INE, Mexico needs at least 150 condors in order to have a healthy population.

A member of the vulture family, California condors are among the largest birds in the world. Large adults can weigh more than 25 pounds and have wingspans of about nine feet. The California condor once flew a wide range from Canada in the north to Mexico and the southern United States in the south.

Source: La Jornada, May 2, 2007. Article by Angela Encisco.

Texas-Coahuila Border Disaster Strikes

Once again, a deadly combination of extreme weather and underdevelopment has wreaked havoc on the US-Mexico border. An April 24 hailstorm and tornado caused at least 10 deaths and about 200 injuries in Eagle Pass, Texas, and neighboring Piedras Negras, Coahuila.

On both sides of the border, thousands of homes and businesses were damaged or demolished, buses and cars destroyed and electrical service temporarily interrupted as far away as Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila. A Roman Catholic church in Piedras Negras collapsed from the storm. An estimated 350 people were forced to seek refuge in Eagle Pass shelters, while another 740 disaster victims were housed in Piedras Negras shelters. In Piedras Negras, a homeless man was reported killed during the April 24 storm.

“Devastation, tragedy and anguish,” were the words one reporter used to describe the situation in the Villa de Fuente community near Piedras Negras. Villa de Fuente was also the scene of a devastating flood in April 2004 that killed more than 30 people.

Seven deaths were registered in Eagle Pass, including five members of one family whose mobile home was tossed into the wind and slammed against an elementary school. On the US side, damages to mobile homes were noteworthy. Like other communities in the US Southwest and borderlands, some residents of Eagle Pass find that ultimately flimsy mobile homes are affordable housing in an otherwise expensive market. A series of twisters that struck Logan, New Mexico, last month destroyed dozens of mobile homes and campers.

As a consequence of the fatal 2004 flood in the Piedras Negras area, the Mexican government set up a siren system to warn locals of impending disasters, but the system reportedly malfunctioned this week. No sirens were operative in Eagle Pass either, though a siren warning system in North Texas was credited with preventing injuries during the latest storm.

Touring the storm zone around Eagle Pass, which included an unincorporated area near the Kickapoo reservation, Texas Governor Rick Perry declared a state disaster. Texas National Guard troops and United States Border Patrol agents assisted with the recovery efforts.

Across the border, Coahuila Governor Humberto Moreira and federal Interior Minister Francisco Ramirez visited Piedras Negras. The Mexican army announced it was implementing an emergency relief plan, but some dispatches reported that few soldiers were on the scene. Resident Pablo Alvarado complained that aid was slow in arriving. “Where is the help the Governor promised?” Alvarado asked.

The Eagle Pass-Piedras Negras storm was the second extreme weather disaster to hit the borderlands in recent weeks. A March 12 flood caused serious damages and disruptions in the Mexican border city of Matamoros and nearby communities in south Texas.

Sources: Univision, April 26, 2007. El Universal, April 24, 25 and 26, 2007. Articles by Hilda Fernandez Valverde and the Reuters news agency. Zocalo.com.mx, April 26, 2007.

Pollution Flows into the Rio Grande

Nearly 40 years after the first Earth Day popularized the modern-day environmental movement, untreated wastewater continues to flow into the Rio Grande between Texas and Mexico. According to one Mexican official, an especially serious problem impacts the river's water quality in and around Reynosa, a growing Mexican industrial city and trade zone which is located across from McAllen, Texas.

In a recent interview with the Reynosa-based EnLinea Directa, an Internet daily, the head of the Tamaulipas State Water Commission complained that Reynosa lags behind other cities in Tamaulipas in installing new wastewater treatment plants. Sabas Campos Almodovar, state water commission director, said that the city of Reynosa is discharging 1,200 liters of untreated wastewater per second into the Rio Grande, thus jeopardizing the communities of Valle Hermoso and Rio Bravo which use river water. "This is putting the inhabitants of these places at grave risk," Campos charged.

Tamaulipas' state water chief said that about 50 wastewater treatment plants are under construction in state municipalities with populations of more than 50,000
persons. Campos added that the projects have a target completion date of December 2007, but that the state agency does not have the power to force start dates or deadlines on cities.

"We cannot oblige the Municipal Water Commission of Reynosa to start public works because we have to respect municipal autonomy," Campos said, "but it is necessary that they get to work on this sanitation project to recover the water used in the city and avoid the contamination of the Rio Grande."

Source: EnLinea Directa, April 15, 2007. Article by Armando Castillo.

Oregon Tree Shipment Halted at Border

In one of the first actions under Operation Christmas Tree, Mexican environmental authorities have halted a shipment of Oregon-raised Douglas-fir trees at the Mexico-US border. Mexico 's Office of the Attorney General for Environmental Protection (Profepa), publicly disclosed the action this week in an announcement unveiling Operation Christmas Tree, a multi-week campaign aimed at curbing possible environmental threats posed by the brisk seasonal business in Christmas trees.

According to the Profepa, Mexican inspectors seized a shipment of almost 2,000 Oregon-bred trees at the Colombia crossing on the Nuevo Leon-Texas border. Justifying its action, the environmental protection agency said the trees were detained after inspectors discovered live Douglas-fir twig weevil larvae in the shipment. The trees will be returned to the US , the Profepa said.

In a Mexico City press conference, Profepa official Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada outlined the different phases of Operation Christmas Tree. In addition to inspecting US and Canadian tree plantations for infestations and diseases, Elvira said Profepa personnel will check ports-of-entry, monitor highway traffic and visit commercial points of sale. The twin objective of the program is to curb illegal tree harvesting and ensure that Mexican consumers purchase healthy trees grown in a sustainable manner, he added. Operation Christmas Tree is expected to continue through December.

Gerardo Molina, the president of the Association of Mexican Christmas Tree Producers, said that approximately 7,800 planted acres and 500,000 trees in Mexico are ready to be harvested for the holiday celebrations. Mexico , Michoacan , Puebla , Veracruz , Nuevo Leon, Baja California states, as well as the Federal District surrounding Mexico City , all lead in the national production of Christmas trees. However, consumer demand outstrips supply in Mexico . More than 822,000 Christmas trees were imported into Mexico during 2005; some 100,000 trees were ordered sent back to the United States due to plant sanitary issues. Through mid-November of this year, about 75,000 Christmas trees were imported into Mexico .

The northern border states of Nuevo Leon, Sonora, Tamaulipas , Baja California and Chihuahua are popular points of entry for foreign-produced Christmas trees. Colima, Veracruz and Mexico City also register a share of the imports.

Sources: El Universal/Notimex, November 15, 2006. Profepa, November 16, 2006. Press statement.

Water Conflicts Unhinge Chihuahua

Blazing temperatures, dry weather, diminishing water sources, and latent ethnic rivalries have tempers flaring in Chihuahua state. Conflicts between Mennonite and mestizo farmers near the northern Chihuahua communities of Nuevo Casas Grandes, Asencion and Janos are deepening over allegations of illegally drilled wells. In a series of recent meetings, mestizo farmers, Mennonite growers, government officials, and politicians from different political factions squared off over the future of an uncertain water supply in a rural region south of the New Mexico border. Pumped deep from the earth, groundwater from more than 1,000 wells gives life to the historic agricultural industry of the area.

Organized in a groundwater advocacy committee, some mestizo farmers accuse Mennonite producers of drilling or planning to drill 800 illegal wells to irrigate more than 100,000 acres of cropland. Calling the Mennonites “depredators” of water sources, Carlos Ramirez, local groundwater committee spokesman, criticized the National Water Commission (Conagua) for allegedly allowing well-drilling in the Santa Maria Ford, a prohibited zone, without first doing an assessment of the health of an aquifer that is shared by Mennonite, mestizo and Mormon farmers. Conagua critics allege that a web of corruption is favoring some Mennonite and Mormon growers backed by foreign capital.

Ramirez's concerns are shared by several Chihuahua state and federal legislators from the PRD, PRI and PAN political parties. “The Mennonites are not our enemies, we don't see them as such,” said Roberto Cazares, a longtime farm movement leader and local deputy who represents the PRD party. “The problem is that they do not respect the legal regulations and want to use the water without being bothered about the costs that could generate in a zone where there are problems because of the drought,” Cazares contended.

However, Flavio Acosta de los Rios, Conagua's Chihuahua state director, denied that legal restrictions exist on well-drilling in the Santa Maria Ford. According to the federal official, Mennonites are within their rights to drill wells in the area. Farmers led by Carlos Ramirez demand a moratorium on additional well-drilling in the region.

Dependent on underground water for irrigation, agriculture in the Asencion region witnessed a spurt of growth in recent years, due in part to the introduction of jalapeno chile pepper crops which were once grown in New Mexico but relocated to Chihuahua by growers seeking to take advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Settling Chihuahua in the 1920s, Canadian Mennonites have established a strong rural presence in parts of the northern border state. Now, Mennonites and their supporters charge that they are being made the scapegoats of growing water crisis, with unfair criticisms bearing xenophobic and chauvinist overtones. According to some Mennonite representatives, a tense environment bordering on violence is developing in some rural communities.

“The government of Canada offers us farms, and many have already gone over there,” said one unidentified Mennonite leader. “(Mennonites) like to live in communities; the day is going to come when all of us might have to go.”

In a recent meeting attended by Chihuahua Rural Development Secretary Reyes Cadena Payan, as well as federal officials from the environment ministry and Conagua, Mennonite farmers and their spokesman, Armando Villareal Martha, another longtime mestizo farm movement leader, defended themselves from accusations of water-hogging. The session resulted in an agreement to conduct a hydrological resource study of the Asencion area, and announced the establishment of working groups made up of irrigators. Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza, meanwhile, proposed that regulations be implemented to avoid the “overexploitation” of groundwater sources.

Sources: La Jornada, June 1, 2006 . Article by Miroslava Breach Velducea. El Diario de Juarez, May 31, 2006 . Articles by Alex Lara, Orlando Chavez and Norma Gomez. El Diario de Chihuahua, May 30, 2006 . Article by Froylan Meza.

Andean Gold Fever Sparks Cross-Border Battles

High in South America's Andes Mountains , a battle continues between rural communities and a large Canadian mining company over the future of an environmentally and culturally-sensitive region. Sparked by a $1.5 billion-dollar project by the Barrick Gold Corporation of Canada , the dispute is an early test of how the new government of Chilean Socialist President Michelle Bachelet will balance environmental and economic concerns. Centered in the Huasco Valley that borders Chile and Argentina , the dispute pits indigenous and rural communities against Barrick Gold over the company's Pascua Lama project.

Projecting the use of tens of thousands of tons of explosives to clear mine entrances, the Canadian transnational proposes to extract 20 million ounces of gold, 600 million ounces of silver and 200,000 tons of copper concentrate over nearly two decades. If precious metal prices continue to stay at their current high levels, the company stands to rake in billions of dollars in profits from Pascua Lima. Many residents of the Huasco Valley contend they will get stuck with the raw end of the deal. They charge the massive mining project will damage or destroy three Andean glaciers, dry up and contaminate groundwater supplies, disturb wildlife habitat, wipe out meadows, and ruin archeological sites.

Pascua Lima will be "the death of the Huasco Valley ," contends Luis Faura, one of the valley's leading opponents to Barrick Gold's plans. Faura is especially concerned about the possible impacts on human health and groundwater from Barrick Gold's plans to use a cyanide leaching process to extract gold and silver; arsenic and mercury pollution are additional worries.

A related conflict involves members of the indigenous Diaguita community of Huascoaltinos who charge that they were stripped of more than 100,000 acres of their ancestral land to pave the way for the project. Nancy Yanez, a lawyer for the community, characterizes the threats posed by the mining project to the Diaguita's traditional farming and grazing activities as constituting ethnocide.

About three-fourths of the project is planned on Chilean territory and one-fourth on Argentine territory. The proposed project site is about 400 miles south of Santiago , Chile , and 180 miles northeast of San Juan , Argentina . The mining is planned to occur at altitudes ranging from about 13,000 to 16,500 feet.

Chile 's National Environmental Commission (Conama) gave a green light to Pascua Lima last February 15, but attached a number of conditions to the project. Conama ordered Barrick to not remove or disturb the glaciers, monitor the groundwater and soil and prevent dust from accumulating on glaciers that supply water to the Huasco Valley .

Vince Borg, a Barrick Gold spokesman, says his company will not challenge the conditions. Barrick Gold's opponents, however, have filed dozens of administrative appeals to Conama's decision. Supporting Huasco Valley residents in the legal challenge are the Santiago-based Latin American Observatory for Environmental Conflicts (Olca) and the international environmental advocacy group Oceana.

According to Cesar Padilla, Olca's mining project director, Barrick Gold's opponents minimally demand the preparation of a new environmental impact statement for Pascua Lima. An Argentine government decision on Pascua Lima is expected by next month. Argentine authorities already have fined Barrick Gold for dumping oil and burying waste in the San Guillermo Biosphere during the company's preliminary project operations. If the environmentalists' appeals fail in Chile , construction of the Chilean portion of the project could begin later this year.

Pascua Lima is the first big project to result from the 1997 mining treaty between Chile and Argentina that lifted binational legal restrictions and eased foreign investment in the mining sectors of the two nations A company with operations five continents, Barrick Gold reportedly has counted among its stockholders former US President George H.W. Bush. Brian Mulroney, the former Canadian prime minister who promoted the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Canada-Chile free trade that facilitated new investments like Barrick Gold's, sits on the company's board of directors. Another prominent company director is Venezuelan media magnate Gustavo Cisneros.

Barrick Gold is not the only transnational company interested in the Andes ' treasures. . Reportedly, the Noranda and Homestake mining companies are also eyeing the region for operations.

Sources: ecoamericas.com, April 2006. Reuters, March 30, 2006 . Article by Lisa Yulkowski. Proceso, February 19, 2006 . Article by Francisco Martin. Inter-Press Service, November 11, 2005 . Article by Daniel Estrada. barrick.com. forbes.com

Argentina-Uruguay Conflict Bared at Vienna Summit : The Story Behind Greenpeace's Summit Stripper

Evangelina Carrozzo achieved what few can only dream. For a few brief moments, literally, the 26-year-old Argentine nutrition student and carnival queen attracted the undivided attention of the presidents and prime ministers of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean-all at the same time. Posing as a journalist, Carrozo slipped into the room where a group picture of the leaders was being snapped during their May 12 summit in Vienna , Austria . Casting aside her "reporter's" reserve, Carrozo slipped off a coat to reveal a thin bikini. Parading before stunned leaders that included British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Mexican President Vicente Fox, among others, Carrozo held up a large sign that directed a clear message to the gaping men: "No Pulpmill Pollution. Greenpeace."

Quickly hustled out of the photo session by security men (apparently to the disappointment of President Chavez, who called the sexy stunt one of the "best" parts of the summit), the queen of Argentina's Gualeyguaychu Carnival and suddenly famous international green activist, justified her creative act of protest as necessary to bring world attention to the deepening crisis between Argentina and Uruguay over plans to establish two cellulose factories near the banks of the Uruguay River dividing the two nations. " I am from Argentina , and we don't want (the plants)," Carrozzo proclaimed.

Drawing mass protests over environmental concerns, the controversial, $1.8 billion-dollar cellulose project promoted by the Uruguayan government spotlights myriad issues that are determining not only the immediate relations of two neighboring countries but also defining the nature of future economic, environmental and political models in Latin America as well. Beyond the bilateral conflict, political shockwaves from the Argentina-Uruguay showdown are reverberating in both the European Union and the Mercosur group of South American nations.

First approved by the conservative government of former Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle, the pulp mill project is centered near the Uruguayan town of Fray Bentos across the Uruguay River from the Argentine city of Gualeguaychu . Partly financed by the World Bank, the plants are slated to be built and operated by two European companies, Botnia of Finland and ENCE of Spain. Expected to provide 4,000 jobs and produce 1.5 million tons of paper pulp per year, the project is a vital component of the economic development strategy crafted currently pursued by the center-left government of Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez, a doctor who was elected with the support of leftist political forces including the former Tupamaro guerrillas.

Although frequently lumped together with other left-of-center Latin American leaders, President Vazquez is staying the course of the export-oriented development model as exemplified by the Fray Bentos project; demand for paper is steady in Europe, Japan and the United States . Recently concluding his first year in office, Vazquez enjoys a large degree of political support and approval for his policies, which also include strong emphases on human rights and social welfare. Externally, however, the pulp mill project has Vazquez's government on a collision course with the left-of-center Argentine government led by Nestor Kirchner.

Invoking the 1975 Uruguay River Treaty, which requires bilateral consultation on issues affecting the river border between Argentina and Uruguay , the Kirchner Administration filed a complaint May 4 against Uruguay in the World Court . Argentina 's legal action, the first time the South American country has recurred to the international legal tribunal, came after an agreement between Kirchner and Vazquez to suspend construction of the two pulp mills for three months while an independent environmental impact study was conducted fell apart, reportedly because of Finnish company Botnia's disagreement with the plan.

The Uruguayan government insists the pulp mills will be environmentally friendly, and accuses Argentina of employing a double-standard for permitting 12 cellulose plants to operate in Argentine territory. But Argentine and international environmentalists criticize the new Uruguayan-hosted cellulose project for planning to use a dirtier bleaching process than the one currently used in European pulp mills. Critics contend the two large plants will produce noxious gases, emit toxic dioxins and furans into environment and dump effluent into the Uruguay River .

"This is not an innocuous industry," says Juan Carlos Villalonga," political director of Greenpeace Argentina . Contending the Fray Bentos plants will double the production capacity of Argentina 's plants, Villalonga calls on Argentina and Uruguay to agree on joint environmental standards for a paper industry "clean production" plan.

Backed by national and international environmental groups like Greenpeace, residents of Gualeguaychu have spearheaded protests against the planned pulp mills and staged large marches involving tens of thousands of people during the last two years. Uruguayan environmentalists have also joined the anti- pulp mill movement. Last February protestors blockaded the river bridge between Fray Bentos and Gualeguaychu for several days, cutting off trade and access to Uruguay and unnerving the Mercosur group of South American countries.

"This is a not merely a binational problem," said Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte Frutos, "but a regional one that deserves the attention of Mercosur." Regionally, environmentalists worry that the installation of the Fray Bentos plants is the latest step in transforming the Guarani basin of Argentina , Uruguay , Paraguay , and Brazil into a paper colony for the developed world. Already, European corporations are reportedly buying up land in Brazil and Uruguay for new pulp mills.

While not receiving as much media attention as Carrozzo, President Kirchner used the Vienna Summit to denounce the planned pulp mills for not complying "with standards that would have been imposed on them in Europe ." Parallel to the official Vienna gathering, civil society groups convened the Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT) in the Austrian city last week. Criticism of Venezuela and Bolivia for following economic development policies anathema to free trade was voiced in Vienna by some European representatives, but the PPT blasted the European Union for allegedly allowing their home country corporations to engage in a new round of eco-imperialism by relocating runaway pulp mills and other dirty industries to the Third World .

Back on the Argentina-Uruguay border, the pulp mill battle contrasts two competing visions of economic development, and is reminiscent in some ways of the old jobs vs. the environment conflict that polarized the US Pacific Northwest during the last decades of the 20th Century. On one side of the border, the 80,000 people of Gualeguaychu place their future bets on the "clean" industry of their famous carnival and tourism. On the other side of the river border, many of the 25,000 people of Fray Bentos, a town once known for its instant coffee and English-style, canned corned beef, look to the industrial pulp mills as one big answer to the chronic unemployment affecting their youth.

Meanwhile, Gualeguaychu Carnival Queen Carrozzo now enjoys even greater prestige in her home town and the province of Entre Rios . Asked for his reactions to Carrozzo's summit strip-tease, Entre Rios Governor Jorge Busti praised the young woman for her "youthful act of great audacity." Added Carrozzo's mother, "(I am) very proud, not only of the attitude of Evangelina, but also Greenpeace. She not only represented Gualeguaychu, but also the world."

Sources: El Universal, May 12 and 13, 2006. Articles by Natalia Gomez Quinteroy, Jose Luis Ruiz and the EFE news agency. La Jornada, May 3 and 13, 2006. Articles by Jose Steinsleger and editorial staff. Inter Press Service, May 4 and 13, 2006. Articles by Marcela Valente and Julio Godoy. Univision, May 13, 2006 . Proceso/Apro. March 13, 2006 . Article by Marcelo Izquierdo. Latin America Data Base ( UNM ), September 16, 2005 and February 10, 2006 . EFE, May 3, 2005 .

Cetaceans Snared by Fishing Nets

Mexican firefighters rescued a young gray whale that was trapped in a lobster net off the Pacific Coast of Baja California last week. Discovered just to the north of New Point near Rosarito, the 24-foot long cetacean was successfully reunited with its mother, according to a press statement from Mexico 's Attorney General for Environmental Protection (Profepa). The federal agency reported the presence of the illegal lobster net- which was set in an inappropriate place during a ban on lobster harvesting- to the National Fishing Commission for further action. A laborious task, the whale rescue reportedly took place over two days.

Less fortunate than the gray whale were 7 dolphins that were found dead about 12 miles from San Felipe, a port located on the Gulf of California side of Baja California . Initial comments from local fishermen and biologists suggested the sea mammals could have fallen prey to sardine fishing nets.

Ricardo Castellanos, the Profepa delegate for Baja California , could not immediately confirm that sardine nets were the cause of the dolphins' deaths. Castellanos said the estimated 12 days that passed between the time of the dolphins' deaths and the recoveries of their bodies complicated exact determinations of the fatalities. A special Profepa team was assigned to study the dolphins' bodies for clues. Suspecting that more dolphins could have died in addition to the 7 specimens found, Castellanos said investigators set out to search the ocean north and south of San Felipe.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez/Apro/El Universal, April 20, 2006 . Profepa, April 19, 2006 . Press statement.

Are the Waters Pure for Holy Week?

Tour buses from Ciudad Juarez and other border cities began heading to vacation destinations last weekend for the two-week Easter holidays. Many of the vacationers will pack Mexican beaches throughout the country, but few will have solid information about the quality of the sea water at their chosen resort. Will they find clean waters? According to a report last week from the environmental group Greenpeace Mexico , the answer is no. Based on statistics obtained from the federal National Water Commission (Conagua) through Mexico 's new freedom of information law, Greenpeace Mexico released data that revealed only an average 34 percent of wastewater released into Mexican oceans is treated.

Alejandro Olivera, the coordinator of Greenpeace Mexico's ocean campaign, noted that untreated wastewaters can translate into a variety of health problems, including skin irritations, eye and ear infections, respiratory maladies, stomach disorders, diarrhea, and even hepatitis. "This is a health risk on many beaches," Olivera contended.

According to the Conagua's statistics, wastewaters dumped into the oceans off the northern border states are better treated than the national average, with Baja California having the best national average of 70.7 percent. In Tamaulipas, 36.5 percent of wastewaters receive treatment, while in Sonora the number is 34.4 percent. However, the statistics reported don't specify whether wastewaters undergo primary or secondary treatment, a process that better cleans up wastewaters.

Released on the eve of Mexico 's big vacation, the Greenpeace Mexico report elicited an almost immediate response from the federal Ministry of the Environment (Semarnat). According to the federal environmental agency, only three out of 207 beaches recently sampled were in violation of water quality standards. Two of the beaches were located in southern Campeche state and one in Nayarit on the Pacific Coast . The agency said no updated reports were received from Baja California , Baja California Sur and Sonora states.

Semarnat, however, did not report the amount of fecal coliforms detected. Nonetheless, Environment Minister Jose Luis Luege Tamargo proposed that a public education campaign about beach water contamination should be launched, and coastal wastewaters managed in a more efficient way.

Beach pollution is a touchy issue in communities dependent on tourism, especially during the economic boom times of holiday seasons like Holy Week. A 2003 Semarnat program to inform the public about water contamination levels at Mexican beach resorts, "Clean Beaches," was passionately attacked by some politicians and members of the tourist industry. Some charged that "Clean Beaches" was part of a conspiracy to drive tourists away from certain resorts and toward Cancun . No evidence of such a conspiracy was ever presented. In Acapulco and Zihuatanejo in Guerrero state, signs warning the public of possible health risks at certain beaches were even stolen.

The next year, articles in the Mexico City daily Reforma revisited the beach pollution issue and prompted a sharp response from then-Acapulco Mayor Alberto Lopez Rosas, a member of the PRD political party. Quoted in Reforma, Acapulco environmentalist and businessman Ramiro Gomez was sued by Lopez Rosas and his municipal government. Gomez told Frontera NorteSur that the Acapulco city government attempted to recover about $6,500 dollars it claimed to have spent in countering negative publicity from the Reforma article.

"Lopez Rosas did this to shut me up," Gomez charged. "He violated my constitutional rights to freedom of expression." A television show host, Gomez broadcast videotaped scenes of open and clandestine discharges of wastewater directly into Acapulco Bay .

More recently, the beach pollution issue got renewed attention when the new Latin American Water Tribunal (TLA), a non-governmental organization based in Costa Rica and composed of prestigious world jurists and academics, heard a complaint from the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center and Zihuatanejo residents about the contamination of the coastal city's bay during last month's World Water Forum in Mexico City. The TLA declared that federal Mexican environmental and water authorities have been negligent in allowing the pollution of the bay, and urged that a master plan for the bay's management be prepared. The bay's pollution constitutes a health risk for the population, the TLA determined.

Greenpeace Mexico 's Olivera underscored the irony of Mexico 's reputation as a beach paradise and the reality of ocean pollution. He called on the "three levels of government" to improve funding for wastewater infrastructure, and step up the coordination of public agencies charged with overseeing the public health and environment.

Whether or not Mexican tourists encounter clean or dirty beach waters this year, they will certainly fork out much more money for the privilege of sunning in the sand and dipping their bodies in the water. A recent study by the private International Consultants company estimated that prices for hotels and restaurants soared nearly 150 percent during the last 10 years, while industrial salaries only increased 30 percent during the same time frame. The current 2-week vacation period is expected to generate nearly $4 billion dollars in spending, according to the federal Ministry of Tourism. An estimated 25 to 30 million Mexicans will leave home during Mexico 's most traveled holiday season.

Additional sources: Greenpeace Mexico , press bulletin, April 5, 2006. Semarnat, press bulletin, April 6, 2006. El Universal, April 7 and 8, 2006. Articles by Guadalupe Hernandez Espinosa and the Notimex news agency. La Jornada, March 21, April 6 and 7, 2006. Articles by Karina Aviles, Laura Poy Solano and Emir Olivares. Proceso/Apro, March 21, 2006. Article by Soledad Jarquin Edgar.

February 6, 2006
NGOS RESPOND TO NAFTA COMMISSION ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE REPORT

Environmental and human rights organizations from Chihuahua state have responded to a landmark report released last month by the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) about the enforcement of Mexico 's environmental laws in the Sierra Tarahumara region of northern Chihauhua state. The report documents numerous irregularities committed by Mexico 's Attorney General for Environmental Protection (Profepa) in handling citizen complaints about illegal logging and natural resource extraction in Chihuahua 's mountains.

The CEC report was prompted by a 2000 citizen submission from the Chihuahua Commission in Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights (Cossydhac) on behalf of indigenous Raramuri residents and leaders. The submitters accused the Mexican government of denying environmental justice to Raramuris by violating due process procedures under the General Law on Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection, as well as ignoring decision-making rights of indigenous communities recognized by the International Labor Organization.

Unnamed Profepa officials cited in the report recognized widespread illegal timer harvesting throughout the 1990s, estimating that between 25 to 33 percent of the wood sold in Mexico was cut illegally. Common causes of illegal logging include substituting land for cattle-grazing, small or medium scale wood commercialization and, increasingly, clearing forest cover for illegal narcotics cultivation.

The CEC investigation found foot-dragging in processing citizen complaints; negligence in gathering evidence of forest arson; irregularities in referring environmental law violations to federal prosecutors; failures in keeping citizens informed, and incomplete follow-up of legally ordered fines and/or reforestation measures. According to the CEC, Mexican government officials blamed some of the deficiencies on the lack of staff and travel time. The CEC contended that cultural and language barriers between indigenous forest residents and mestizo Profepa inspectors working out of offices hours from the mountains were also problematic. Set up as the environmental side commission under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the CEC issues factual reports to member governments but does not have enforcement authority.

In response to the CEC report, which went public 7 months after its completion, a statement issued by three Chihuahua City-based groups and individuals recognized potentially positive steps toward environmental justice as coming from the report, but nevertheless criticized what the activists contended were ongoing institutional failures in the Mexican federal government's relationship with indigenous forest communities in northern Chihuahua state. The statement was signed by Cossydhac, Maria Teresa Guerrero of Community Technical Consultants and Agustin Bravo of Fuerza Ambiental

"It remains clear to us that the problem at hand requires not only partial reforms to current laws, but most of all, a state reform that establishes a clear relationship between government authorities and indigenous peoples," said the signers.

Assessing the CEC report, the non-governmental organizations criticized the persistence of a business-as-usual atmosphere during the costly, time-consuming investigation. According to the citizen response, "no substantial changes in the exercise of law by the Profepa were observed" during the 5 years the CEC complaint was processed.

In the same time period, the environmental and human rights activists credited the forestry division of the Chihuahua state Ministry of Rural Development with making progress in addressing public concerns about illegal timber trafficking in the Sierra Tarahumara. According to Cossydhac and the other groups, state inspectors discovered 214 illegal wood shipments in 2004 and 304 in 2005. Also 149 new citizen complaints were registered with the Profepa, and 6 legal cases channeled to the Federal Attorney Generals Office for prosecution in the most recent two-year period.

There was no immediate public comment from the Profepa about the CEC report, but Profepa official Hector Gonzalez Reza recently said efforts to combat illegal logging in Mexico will be stepped up in 2006. According to Gonzalez, the Profepa seized 15,000 cubic meters of wood in 164 operations nationwide during 2005, closed 13 sawmills, confiscated 154 vehicles and referred more than 38 people to the federal prosecutor. Once declared an issue of "national security" by President Vicente Fox, forest conservation has been identified by Mexico 's Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources as a key element in preventing global warming.

Nationally, the CEC report has many implications for the procurement of environmental justice in collective land-owning forest communities. Manuel Solis, the assistant Profepa delegate in Guerrero state, said his agency is collaborating with the Mexican armed forces, the Federal Preventive Police and Federal Office of the Attorney General to halt and prosecute illegal logging. Solis, who said he is not familiar with the CEC report, said the Profepa has identified 19 critical zones nationwide for special attention.

Solis added a 4-pronged strategy is under implementation to combat forest depredations. The forestry law enforcement plan includes joint federal law enforcement operations, checkpoints, citizen monitoring committees and logging permit revisions. By the end of 2005, the Profepa is on public record as establishing 123 citizen vigilance committees to monitor illegal timber harvesting in Mexico .

Inspectors in Guerrero , Chihuahua and elsewhere sometimes confront resistant loggers or armed gangs often linked with drug traffickers in disputed logging zones. Solis, for example, said he was almost once attacked by an individual wielding a chain-saw. In a counter-trend, Solis added there is a rising environmental consciousness among the residents of forest communities. "They see the need to take care of (the forest) in order to benefit in the future," Solis said. "There's already a culture of not logging for logging sakes."

In Chihuahua , Cossydhac and other forest advocacy groups contend the federal government needs to transform its culture of enforcement, move beyond bureaucratically processing individual cases and treat environmental complaints as common concerns of collectively-rooted indigenous communities already enjoying their own forms of decision-making authority. According to the forest defenders, shortcomings in guaranteeing environmental justice are rooted in "structural failures of the environmental justice system and the access to it."

Kent Paterson

A Slaughter of Sea Lions

In the struggle for control of Baja California's coastal waters, the sea lions appear to be losing out to the global fish market. In the first 7 months of 2005, at least 53 sea lions died in Baja California. The death toll is a leap from 2003 when at least 8 deaths were tallied and 2004 when 15 were counted. Ricardo Castellanos Percevault, the Baja California state delegate of the Federal Attorney General for Environmental Protection, said more than half of this year's dead sea lions were shot or bludgeoned to death.

 "Our inspectors find between three and four dead sea lions every month, either with bullets in their bodies or with their heads destroyed because somebody smashed them in," said Castellanos. Last May was a particularly fatal time for the sea mammals, with 26 of the creatures turning up dead in less than 15 days. An elephant seal and a dolphin were also discovered shot to death. In the wake of the finds, Mexico's  Office of the Federal Attorney General opened an investigation to determine who was responsible for the slaughter. The leading suspects include sardine fishermen and the operators of pens where tuna are fattened before being exported to Japan.

 In the popular tourist town Ensenada, the sea lion population is on the increase, apparently encouraged by visitors who come and toss food at the creatures. The attraction has created a business opportunity for vendors who sell cups of food for about one dollar each.

 “My children love to come to the malecon just to throw fish at the sea lions,” said tourist Rosario Mayo. “I spend $10 to $15 dollars every time we come.” One focal point of the killings is the Punta Banda coastal marsh just south of Ensenada. A local fisherman there, only identified as Juan Carlos, said the sea lions penetrate fishers' nets and snatch their bait.

 "Sometimes we throw our lines in and catch something heavy, thinking we've fished something big," said Juan Carlos. "When we pull on the fishing pole we realize that it's a sea lion eating our bait. Later on, we see these animals injured because the fishermen hit them with poles so they will leave the bait alone. Many fishermen really hate them."

 On the opposite side of the spectrum, environmentalists and school children from Heroes of Baja California group have staged protests against slaughtering sea lions. “Fishermen and tuna breeders blame the sea lions for their losses, but they should remember that it is humans who are invading their habitat,” said Liliana Manriquez, a member of the Gaviotas environmental organization. 

 In early July, Mexican Congressman Guillermo Velasco Rodriguez, a deputy for the Mexican Green Party (PVEM), introduced a resolution in the federal Chamber of Deputies calling for a multi-agency probe into both the sea lion killings and legality of fishing operations in the zone where sea mammals are being slaughtered. "One might ask why sardine boats have been permitted to fish along the coast, when they should not do that according to their fishing permit," said Velasco. "Equally important, it should draw attention that the fishermen carry firearms. Perhaps they have the necessary permits?" The PVEM deputy proposed that authorities come up with a plan to protect the sea lions and fishermen from each other.

 According to Osvaldo Santillan, a biologist and fishing inspector, about 20,000 sea lions inhabit the coastlines of Baja California. Breeding colonies of the sea mammals are concentrated around the Coronado Islands, Todos Santos Bay and Punta Banda, the scene of much of this year's slaughter. An integral part of the marine ecosystem, sea lions also serve as food for sharks, whose populations face threats too. 

 Sources: El Universal, July 31, 2005. Articles by Rosa Maria Mendez Fierros. Resolution by Deputy Guillermo Velasco Rodriguez, July 6, 2005. pvem.org.mx

The Precarious Month of July

The unleashing of natural and manmade forces during the month of July dramatized the precarious lives of many people on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border. Rain, wind, drought and extreme heat took human life, destroyed property and left crops unplanted. In the Reynosa-Matamoros corridor, residents grappled with the after-effects of Hurricane Emily.  A ruptured Pemex gas line apparently caused by the storm prompted authorities to temporarily shut off water service for about one million people in and around Reynosa in late July because of fears that leaking gas might contaminate the water supply.

 Heavy rains falling in the hurricane’s aftermath left 5,000 people homeless in Reynosa alone, especially in colonias where previous municipal administrations had improperly encouraged home seekers to build houses in flood zones. Recreational fields and the Mexican government's customs facility were also submerged under water. The McAllen Economic Development Corporation launched a material aid drive for flood victims, and Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores toured the zone to assess damage. Among other measures, Gov. Hernandez pledged to mount an "intense health campaign" aimed to forestall a possible dengue outbreak.  

While heavy rains drenched the lower portions of the Rio Grande Basin, a shortage of water in parts of Chihuahua state prevented about 100,000 small farmers from planting their staple corn and bean crops, according to Victor Quintana, an advisor to the Democratic Campesino Front of Chihuahua. Quintana estimated potential economic losses in the neighborhood of $70 million dolllars. In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, fierce winds whistling up to 60mph bent billboards, damaged houses and tore the roof off of one school. 

 In the Texas border county of Webb, some colonia residents endured blistering summer heat without air conditioning because of legal obstacles blocking the installation of utilities in the La Presa subdivision. Patricia Gonzalez, a mother of three, demanded state and federal attention. "This is a matter of life and death, these children don't even have a fan," she declared. "What's it going to take? A child dying of heat stroke?" 

 Outside the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo region, deadly temperatures racked up a record number of dead border crossers, especially in the El Paso-Deming, NM corridor and along the southern Arizona border. By the third week of July, at least 10 people had been found dead in the desert between El Paso and Deming. In Southern Arizona, the United States Border Patrol reported 98 bodies recovered during the first 25 days of July, a big rise over last year’s death toll of 60 bodies discovered in the same area in the entire month of July. The mounting deaths indicate that many people are not responding to Mexican and U.S. government campaigns warning against crossing the U.S. border illegally.

 The latest victims came from the Mexican states of Sonora, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Zacatecas, among other places. They included Carlos Armando Ortiz Dominguez, 25; Virginia Lizbeth Mejia Mejia, 19; and Lecrecia Dominguez Luna, 35. A resident of Zacatecas,  Lecrecia Dominguez collapsed and died under the horrified watch of her 15-year-old son, Jesus, while attempting to cross the border in June. Jesus later returned to the desert in an unsuccessful attempt to reclaim his mother's body, but his recollections eventually guided his grandfather, Cesario Dominguez, and a friend, Jose Lerma, to the exact place where Lecrecia's remains lay. Weeks after Lecrecia’s death, and after passing by other decomposing bodies during their desert search, Dominguez and Lerma came upon a pile of bleached bones. Three remaining fingers bearing Lecrecia's three rings stood out, allowing Dominguez to identify his daughter. "God wanted me to find her," Dominguez said. 

\Sources: La Prensa de Reynosa, July 31, 2005. Article by Luis Alberto Triana F. Albuquerque Journal, July 29, 2005. La Jornada, July 29, 2005. tucsoncitizen.com, July 29, 2005. Article by Claudine LoMonaco. El Bravo (Matamoros) July 28, 2005. El Universal, July 28, 2005. Article by Roberto Grimaldo Aguilar. Proceso/Apro, July 27, 2005. Article by Pedro Matias. La Prensa de Reynosa, July 27, 2005. Article by Aldo Hernandez J. Univision, July 27 and July 26, 2005. Laredo Morning Times, July 25, 2005, article by Julie Daffern. La Prensa de Reynosa, July 25, 2005. Article by Luis Alberto Triana F. The Monitor (McAllen), July 24, 2005. Article by Jennifer C. Smith and Brittney Booth. The Monitor, July 23, 2005. Article by Marc B. Geller. Latin America Working Group, July 19, 2005. Article by Sean Mariano Garcia. Norte (Ciudad Juarez) July 14, 2005. Articles by Cesar Ruiz and Francisco Lujan. 

Nadbank Funds New Landfill

Out of space for garbage at its existing dump, Matamoros will soon get some relief when  a new landfill opens for business with the financial help of the San Antonio-based North American Development Bank (Nadbank). Matamoros Mayor Baltazar Hinojosa Ochoa announced that the first phase of the 113-hectare landfill should be ready to receive loads in less than 70 days. Hinojosa said the huge garbage confinement center is expected to last 40 years, and is to be built with up-to-date national and international environmental standards.

 “We’re going to do it in a very good way in accordance with all the health, environmental and technical requirements,” said Hinojosa.  The mayor added that Matamoros will examine the possibility of utilizing the landfill as a source of alternative energy in the future. The new landfill is located about 16 miles from the border city, and is large enough to handle shipments from the nearby municipality of Valle Hermoso in addition to Matamoros. Valle Hermoso will not be charged for use of the landfill. Mayor Hinojosa  and Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores earlier signed a letter-of-intent for the landfill project with Nadbank Director Raul Rodriguez Barocio.

According to Rodriguez, the landfill project is part of a $107 million-dollar Nadbank investment in santitation projects for Tamaulipas. Matamoros’ current population is conservatively estimated at approximately 500,000. Mayor Hinojosa calculated that his city produces about 500 tons of garbage a day and 165,000 tons per year.  It is anticipated that when the first phase of the landfill construction is completed, the site will be able to deposit 114,000 tons of trash from both Matamoros and Valle Hermosa. By the end of the current municipal administration, authorities hope the new landfill will have the capacity to store 530,000 tons of garbage.

 Sources: El Bravo, May 25, 2005. Article by Erandi Marquez.  El Bravo, May 10, 2005.

State-Indigenous Tensions on Rise

Members of the Seri indigenous community who inhabit northwestern coastal Sonora accuse the state and federal governments of attempting to take their land for tourist development. Ernesto Molina Villalobos, a resident of the traditional Seri village of Punta Chueca, denounced a raid conducted by the Sonora State Judicial Police and Federal Agency of Investigations last month in which 40 masked officers allegedly fired at buildings occupied by children and pulled a pistol on a woman. Molina charged that the raid was part of a pressure campaign to force the Seri off their lands and clear the way for hotel and tourist construction as part of the Nautical Stairway tourist mega-project.

 “We have struggled for years to not lose our history and territory, but now the government has violated the sovereignty of our community,” said Molina.

The Seri mainly live in two villages on the Sea of Cortez and near their sacred, ancestral home of Tiburon Island. Their homeland is located on a planned coastal highway between Puerto Penasco in the north and Guaymas in the south, a region undergoing a tourist boom.  Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours denied that recent police raids were carried out with the intention of dispossessing the Seris of their land. According to Bours, state and federal officers have been attempting to execute an arrest warrant against a man named El Pollo. Reputedly, El Pollo is the same individual who’s been confiscating materials from illegal fishermen operating on Tiburon Island. Governor Bours added that Seri opposition to the Nautical Stairway project will set back the planned coastal highway and related tourist enterprises. “If they say no, as they have stated in the media, we will have to turn back the clock on (the road),” said Bours.  “I am worried about the backwardness of the Seris.  They have a great opportunity to modernize as they inhabit one of the richest zones in the state for tourist development and aquaculture.”

Meanwhile, an official with Mexico’s Attorney General for Environmental Protection (Profepa) launched a warning to members of the Cucapa indigenous community who reside near the upper Gulf of California and Colorado River Delta bordering Sonora and Baja California. Profepa Delegate Ernesto Munro Palacio complained that Cucapa fishermen were not respecting protected zones for the gulf curvina fish and harvesting the species at spawning time. Palacio said that the federal government is not against the right of the Cucupa to fish, but that all fishermen must respect Mexican law regardless of ancestral rights and traditional customs. Palacio signed a joint cooperative agreement with the federal Attorney General’s Office to expedite the enforcement of environmental law.

 Sources. La Jornada, May 10 and May 5, 2005. Articles by Cristobal Garcia Bernal. LaCronica (San Luis Rio Colorado), May 3, 2005. Article by Santiago Barroso Alfaro

Reynosa Mulls Used Tire Mess

Strewn in and around border cities, used tires are considered not only an eyesore but an environmental hazard as well. They provide breeding grounds for possible insect-borne diseases and sometimes catch on fire, releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. In 2004, estimates of the number of discarded tires littering the northern border region of Mexico surpassed 10 million. Many were imported from the United States. Nearly 2 million of the old treads were dumped in Tamaulipas state alone. Now, authorities in the border city of  Reynosa, where about 500,000 used tires have accumulated,  say they are reviewing strategies to clean up the problem in their municipality.

Regino Bermudez Alvear, the president of the Reynosa City Council’s ecology commission, said at a meeting late last week that authorities are considering proposals to construct two temporary collection and transfer stations for used tires in his city.

“What we are proposing are centers where trailers would be located and tires put in them,” said Bermudez. “It would be closed and cordoned off in order to prevent it from becoming a dump. It only will be a transfer center.”

 Bermudez said that the council will seek an agreement with the major cement company CEMEX for the final disposition of the tires. According to the councilman, CEMEX is the only entity so far which has shown interest in acquiring used tires. Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources reached an agreement last year with national cement companies to promote the massive incineration of tires in order to recycle the old rubber and generate fuel used in the production of cement.

 However, the process is controversial, and some non-governmental groups like the Chihuahua Commission in Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights (COSYDDHAC) are protesting  incineration on the grounds that it releases dioxin, mercury and other contaminants into the environment. Mexican environmental authorities have disputed the claims.

 Reynosa Mayor Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca added that although CEMEX is the only company to have expressed interest in recycling used tires, others are welcome to step forward. “Whether it is one or two or more companies,” said the mayor.  Other, unnamed Reynosa City Council members commented that society as a whole should get involved in taking urgent action to curb the environmental dangers posed by the used treads.

 Sources: La Prensa (Reynosa), May 8, 2005. Article by Aldo Hernandez J.  El Mexicano (Ciudad Juarez), September 2, 2004. Diario de Juarez, August 25, 2004. Article by A Loyola and O. Volchanskaya.  COSSYDHAC, et. al,  July 2004. Letter to President Vicente Fox.  El Sur/AFP (Acapulco),  June 25, 2004.

Nafta Commission to Review Baja Ecology Complaint

The Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has agreed to review a binational citizen complaint against a natural gas re-gasification terminal planned  for a zone off the coast of Baja California. Pursued by environmental groups and activists from Mexico and the United States, the complaint charges that a terminal slated near the Coronado Islands threatens the breeding grounds of the endangered seabird Xantu's Murrelet and other species considered at risk. The submitters of the complaint include Greenpeace Mexico; The Center for Biological Diversity, Alfonso Aguirre; Shay Wolf; American Bird Conservancy; Los Angeles Audobon Society; Pacific Environment and Resources Center; and Wildcoast.

 The environmentalists contend that an environmental impact statement about the re-gasification project which was prepared by Mexico's Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat)  ignored provisions of the country's General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection. They question Semarnat's assessments that environmental impacts related to tanker and gas terminal activity would be insignificant,  citing several key issues supposedly glossed over by Mexican authorities, including the impacts of light pollution on nocturnal seabirds;  the risk of catastrophic explosions; and the possible disruptions of introducing invasive animals, rats, to the Coronado Islands. The submitters also allege that the Mexican government did not take into account the Coronado Islands' status as a specially protected area since July 2003.

 Currently, the CEC Secretariat is analyzing whether the citizen submission complies with requirements under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. After reviewing the submission, the CEC might decide to investigate the complaint and publish a factual record of its findings, which then would be forwarded to the two parties. Established as the environmental side commission to the North American Free Agreement, the CEC is an advisory body which does not have enforcement authority.

 Source: CEC, May 6, 2005. Press Release.

An Eco-Gang Rises Up

Young Yesenia Gonzalez Viterio has founded a gang. But the 10-year-old elementary school student from the ejido La Diana near Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas  doesn’t squander her days bashing rivals’ heads or tagging walls. Instead, Yesenia and her fellow “gang” members pass their spare time learning about ecology and picking up garbage. After seeing trash dumped into a local river and plants ripped up, Yesenia said she decided something had to be done to improve the environment. “It makes me sad to see people throw a lot of trash in the river or in the street and destroy plants,” said the budding environmentalist. “That damages the environment, and all of us should take care of nature.”

With the assistance of school teacher Rosa Maria Gonzalez Luna, Yesenia and a handful of her classmates founded a new organization. They dubbed it the Environmental Nature Gang. Now counting more than 20 members whose ages range from 8 to 11, the group receives ecological training,  practices reforestation activities and cleans up places like the Corona River. The youthful greens also help local charities; for instance, collecting money for an association dedicated to fighting child cancer. One of the “gang’s” objectives is to create consciousness among adults about the importance of the environment. “Wouldn’t it be beautiful if there were no more rivers with trash, or if people knew how important ecology was?” said 9-year-old Ana Belen Ortiz Balderas.

 The example set by the Environmental Nature Gang seems to be catching on in other  Tamaulipas communities. For example, a similar youth group is reported forming in Estacion de Santa Engracia.  School teacher Gonzalez is excited by the ecological awareness developing among local children. “I am convinced that all children have a big environmental sensibility,” said Gonzalez. “Because of this, they immediately capture the importance of taking care of our natural surroundings.”

Source:  El Universal, April 30, 2005. Article by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo

Tijuana Rain:  Homes Destroyed, Shelters Filled and Schools Closed

Frequent rains in December 2004 and January 2005 have had severe consequences for Tijuana.  Approximately 100 homes have been partially or totally destroyed, the city has requested the evacuation of 2,000 homes, most temporary city shelters are filled to capacity and schools have been closed.   

According to Marco Antonio Sánchez Navarro, the city's assistant director of Protección Civil (Civil Protection), approximately 100 houses have been partially or totally destroyed due to rains since December 26, 2004.  Sánchez said that specific reports of damaged homes have come from the neighborhoods of Cañada Verde, El Florido, Las Torres, Colonia Libertad, Playas de Tijuana and Colonia Juárez.  

As part of his work to protect the city, Sánchez says that his office is visiting neighborhoods to look for homes that are about to fall down hillsides because of erosion or that are threatened by mud slides.  So far Protección Civil has requested that 2,000 homes be abandoned for safety reasons.

Sánchez says that not every family that leaves its home goes to a city shelter.  Instead, most families prefer to stay with relatives when possible.  

Currently 382 people are living in temporary shelters established by the city.  Of Tijuana’s four temporary shelters only one is not filled to capacity, Sánchez noted. 

Another consequence of the weeks of precipitation has been a lack of city services, according to an article in the Tijuana newspaper Frontera (no relation to FNS).  Some neighborhoods have not been serviced by waste disposal trucks for over a month.  This has led people to dispose of their garbage in open fields and along roadsides. 

Some citizens are worried that this waste could have negative health effects and they have requested that dumpsters be brought into their communities.   Some of the communities that are experiencing illegal dumping of garbage are Héroes de la Independencia, Villas del Sol, Ejido Francisco Villa and neighborhoods near the Cerro Colorado.

Finally, due to inclement weather, state and city civil protection officials have ordered the closure of all schools from preschool through high school in Tijuana, Rosarito, Tecate and the surrounding areas for Monday, January 10, 2005.  The Universidad Tecnológica de Tijuana also cancelled both day and evening classes.