Baja, U.S. to clean up mountains of scrap tires
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050207-1...
1.2 million of them are outside Mexicali
By Sandra Dibble
February 5, 2005
MEXICALI -- For years, mountains of scrap tires rising west of Baja California's capital have blighted the desert landscape and created a giant fire
hazard that threatens residents on both sides of the border.
Now a joint cleanup led by U.S. and Mexican federal environmental agencies is expected to eliminate the notorious dump at El Centinela, one of the
largest scrap tire piles in Mexico.
By the end of the year, 1.2 million tires at El Centinela -- and an additional 200,000 rising across the Mexicali-Tijuana highway at a site known as
Innor -- will be gone, authorities say, and so will a major environmental headache.
"With this step, we will prevent a fire that could cause contamination of incalculable proportion," said Alberto Card##as, Mexico's secretary of the
environment and natural resources, or Semarnat.
At an open-air stage set up next to a pile of tires, authorities yesterday announced funding to eliminate the problem at El Centinela and Innor.
Semarnat is spending $628,000 on the cleanup, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is contributing $100,000 this year.
"What brings us here is to finally end this problem," said Baja California Gov. Eugenio Elorduy Walther.
The funds are being used to haul the tires to Ensenada, where a Mexican cement manufacturer, Cemex, has agreed to burn them at no cost and use them as
fuel.
The impetus for the cleanup is Border 2012, a 10-year plan that addresses environmental problems along the U.S.-Mexico border. One of the goals is to
clean up three of the largest abandoned tire sites on the border.
Mexico faces a massive tire disposal problem, as millions of used U.S. tires are brought across the border by salesmen known as llanteros and resold
to Mexican consumers.
Many of tires end up in streambeds, roadways and illegal dumps that turn into fire hazards and breeding grounds for mosquitos.
Border communities are especially affected.
The largest dump is in Ciudad Juarez, which has accumulated 4.5 million tires, followed by El Centinela.
U.S. and Mexican environmental officials are cooperating on management plans to prevent such problems in the future, said Laura Yoshii, deputy
regional administrator in the EPA's San Francisco office.
Semarnat is experimenting with different technologies for recycling waste tires, blending them with asphalt for roadways, or using them for fuel, or
to build retaining walls.
The Mexican government also has tried to contain the problem by setting quotas on used tires. For the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur
and a portion of Sonora, llanteros are allowed to import 500,000 tires a year, but are required to properly dispose of the same number of tires.
Each year, however, millions of tires are smuggled across the border and never accounted for. Additional tires are brought across on used cars that
will be sold as scrap.
"Until you establish controls on everyone who sells tires, this problem is not going to go away," said Balbino Vidal, whose Federacion de Llanteros
represents about 1,500 used tire salesmen in Baja California, Baja California Sur and Sonora.
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