environmental talks
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20030405-9999_7m5e...
Officials from both sides are involved
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 5, 2003
TIJUANA ? A 10-year plan addressing environmental and health issues along the U.S.-Mexican border was unveiled yesterday with pledges of cooperation
from both sides on topics such as toxic-waste disposal, air pollution and water contamination.
Border 2012, as the plan is known, was praised as a renewed commitment at collaboration along the 2,000-mile border, where rapid growth has created
economic opportunities but also has degraded the environment.
Dozens of state and federal environmental officials from both countries gathered at the city's Camino Real Hotel to introduce the plan. Also
participating in the ceremony were Indian tribes from both sides.
"The environment does not know boundaries," said Raul Arriaga, an undersecretary with Mexico's Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources,
or Semarnat. "On the contrary, the geography and resources that we share are the element that validates our friendship and binds our destinies."
The plan lists these goals: reduce water contamination, air pollution and land contamination, improve environmental health, increase compliance of
environmental regulations and pollution prevention efforts and reduce exposure to toxic chemicals from an accident or terrorism.
Linda Fisher, deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said "a lot needs to be done" in responding to bioterrorism on both
sides of the border.
"We're only beginning the process of interacting with Mexico," she said. "We're trying to understand in the United States our own capacities and then
how we can relate it to the border."
Border 2012 is being launched even as the U.S. government slashes its yearly contribution to the Border Environmental Infrastructure Fund by $25
million, money earmarked to build waste-water treatment and solid-waste plants on the border.
Despite shrinking government budgets, participants said results can be achieved under the plan's concrete objectives. One objective is to clean up by
2012 the three largest sites that contain old tires. Another goal is to establish by 2006 a monitoring system for evaluating coastal water quality at
the international border beaches.
"The thing that we really applaud about the plan is that it's finally focused on human health," said Rick Van Schoik, director of the Southwest Center
for Environmental Research & Policy, based at San Diego State University. "Why do environmental work unless you're really going to connect to what
matters: the humans that are really here?"
The foundation for Border 2012 reaches back to 1983, when the United States and Mexico signed the La Paz Agreement for cooperation on environmental
issues along the border. In 1996, the two governments renewed their commitment under the Border XXI program, which lasted five years.
Border 2012 steps in after a two-year lull and, for the first time, includes state governments and Indian tribes in the agreement.
Among the participants yesterday was Winston Hickox, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. The state already is working with
Baja California in a number of areas, he said, including establishing a smog-check program for Tijuana and providing advice on inspections of
industrial waste-water discharge.
Ernesto Ruffo Appel, Mexico's commissioner for the northern border, applauded the increased regional input but said it should go further.
"I hope that next we can include municipal governments, and perhaps those of a few private groups concerned about the environment," he said.
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