Study on the Operation and Effects of the NAFTA: Chapter 4, Part 1

Study on the Operation and Effect
of the North American Free Trade Agreement

From: Reports Issued by the Office of the United States Trade Representative and Related Entities

Chapter 4: the North American Environment:
Cooperation, Institutions, and Enforcement

The NAFTA and its related environmental agreements have fostered among the three NAFTA governments broad-based environmental cooperation:

The institutions created under the environmental agreements provide opportunities for both governments and citizens of the three NAFTA parties to interact at all levels, ensuring that the public’s concerns regarding environmental matters will be heard and facilitating joint efforts to address common environmental problems.
While progress is already evident, many of the three NAFTA governments’ environmental concerns -- especially those in the U.S.-Mexico border region -- were decades in the making and cannot realistically be corrected overnight.

The NAFTA and its related environmental agreements have revitalized a long history of bilateral environmental cooperation, particularly along the 2,000 mile shared border with Mexico:

The U.S.-Mexico Border XXI Program sets five-year objectives for achieving and sustaining a clean border environment and provides a blueprint for meeting those objectives.
Through Border XXI’s nine binational working groups, U.S. and Mexican officials are now working to reduce emissions from idling vehicles at border crossings, tracking transboundary shipments of hazardous wastes, operating a U.S.-Mexico Joint Response Team to minimize the risk of chemical accidents, finding ways to reduce solid waste from maquiladoras, evaluating children’s health risks from cumulative pesticide exposures, and seeking to reduce the impacts of growth and development on fish and wildlife resources along the border.
With help from the International Boundary Water Commission, new large wastewater treatment plants have recently been completed to service Nuevo Laredo and San Diego/Tijuana, sparing the Rio Grande River and the beaches of San Diego and Tijuana from those cities’ raw sewage for the first time in decades.

The Mexican government is improving its enforcement of Mexico’s environmental laws:

Mexico has continued to increase the number of its enforcement actions nationwide, increased the number and sophistication of its environmental inspectors in such critical areas as hazardous waste transboundary shipment, and created an environmental crimes unit in the Attorney General's office.
Mexico has established an environmental auditing program to promote voluntary compliance. As of April 1997, 617 facilities in Mexico have completed environmental audits, and 404 have signed compliance Action Plans representing more than $800 million in environmental improvement investments in Mexico.
Mexico reports a 72 percent reduction in serious violations in the maquiladora industry from 1993 to 1996, and a 43 percent increase in the number of maquiladora facilities in complete compliance.

The Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) and the North American Development Bank (NADBank) are helping communities in the U.S.-Mexico border area design and fund badly needed infrastructure projects that will improve conditions for border residents:

To date, the BECC has certified 16 projects, with a combined estimated cost of nearly $230 million. Seven of those projects are already under construction, and construction is imminent in four more.
The NADBank, once fully capitalized in 1998, will be able to leverage $225 million into $2-3 billion in lending. A Bank/EPA cooperative agreement will enable the Bank to combine its financing with up to $170 million in EPA grants for eligible water and wastewater projects certified by the BECC.
The NADBank has already approved financing packages for four projects, two on each side of the border: a water treatment facility in Brawley, California; a wastewater system and water supply improvement project in Mercedes, Texas; a water supply and wastewater treatment facility in Naco, Sonora; and a wastewater treatment plant for an industrial park in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.
NADBank is working with sponsors of the other BECC-certified projects (not including four projects that did not seek NADBank financing) to develop and finalize technically and financially sound financing packages.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has begun work on an extensive list of environmental projects that will have direct, positive effects on the North American environment:

The CEC has developed action plans for the reduction and elimination of two dangerous pesticides, chlordane and DDT, and the toxic industrial chemical PCB, from the North American environment. Mexico’s agreement to join the United States and Canada in banning these long-lived chemicals helps ensure that they will no longer cross our borders.
The CEC is helping the three governments improve their environmental enforcement efforts in such areas as tracking illegal transborder movements of hazardous substances and wastes, enforcing anti-smuggling laws against trade in endangered wildlife, and limiting the illegal trade in ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons.

The CEC provides organizations and individuals of the three countries with a forum for the investigation of enforcement allegations and other environmental concerns:

The submission process subjects member governments to public and international scrutiny for allegations that they are not effectively enforcing their environmental laws.
Ten public submissions have been filed with the Secretariat (three concerning the United States, five concerning Canada, and two concerning Mexico).
Two secretariat-generated reports, on the long-range transport of air pollutants and evaluating the death of 40,000 migratory birds at a Mexican reservoir, have also attracted public attention and facilitated cooperative efforts to address identified problems.

Introduction

The negotiation of the NAFTA and its related environmental agreements has given added impetus to a long history of U.S., Canadian, and Mexican environmental cooperation. The agreements have resulted in enhanced regional intergovernmental cooperation to address pressing environmental issues, including border pollution, trade in hazardous wastes, climate change and conservation of endangered species. They help ensure that North Americans do not obtain the benefits of economic development at the expense of environmental protection.

NAFTA itself includes numerous provisions designed to safeguard the environment. For instance, NAFTA ensures that the United States can maintain and enforce its existing federal and state health, safety, and environmental standards, as well as U.S. international treaty obligations to limit trade in controlled items, such as endangered species. In addition, NAFTA expressly endorses the principle of sustainable development and includes environmentally-sensitive provisions on dispute settlement and investment. The NAFTA goes further than any other trade agreement in addressing environmental concerns associated with trade barrier elimination.

The NAFTA environmental agreement, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), has revolutionized environmental policy coordination among the three NAFTA partners. The NAAEC specifically commits its parties to provide for high levels of environmental protection and to effectively enforce their environmental laws. It also created a new institution -- the CEC -- to provide for ongoing dialogue and cooperation on common environmental concerns among the three partners. Importantly, this dialogue extends beyond governments to all levels of society through the CEC’s multiple fora for public participation.

To develop needed environmental infrastructure in the U.S.-Mexico border region, the United States and Mexico forged a related agreement at the time NAFTA was negotiated that established two new institutions -- the BECC and the NADBank. The BECC certifies or approves projects based on a set of rigorous environmental, technical, financial, community participation, and sustainable development criteria and refers them to NADBank and other sources for funding consideration. Making extensive use of local companies and workers, BECC and NADBank build technical skill, institutional expertise, and creditworthiness in a growing number of border communities.

This Chapter examines the progress that the three NAFTA governments have made in the past three years in addressing the environmental issues they face -- particularly the problems in the U.S.-Mexico border region. It begins by laying out the broader context of environmental cooperation between the United States and Mexico, since many of the efforts currently underway to address cross-border environmental issues are taking place in conjunction with and outside the context of the NAFTA institutions. While this Chapter -- and most public attention -- focuses on environmental concerns related to the U.S.-Mexico border, it should be recognized that U.S.-Canada environmental cooperation also provides a framework for responding to environmental issues that may arise in the course of these governments’ increasingly complex economic interactions. Among other issues, the first section discusses progress made in reducing pollution in the U.S.-Mexico border region and provides an update on Mexico’s efforts to enforce its environmental laws. The following section describes the activities of NAFTA-related environmental institutions (i.e., the BECC, the NADBank, and the CEC), and assesses these institutions’ contributions to addressing North American environmental concerns.

It is important to remember that many of the environmental concerns facing the United States, Canada, and Mexico -- and particularly, the problems of the U.S.-Mexico border region -- were decades in the making. These problems were not created by NAFTA, and to expect them to be resolved within three years is simply unrealistic. Consider, for instance, that while the United States and Canada have cooperated for decades on cleaning up the Great Lakes, and a great deal of measurable progress has already been made, work is still ongoing and much remains to be done. Estimates for the cost of providing the border with needed environmental infrastructure (for drinking water systems, wastewater collection and treatment, and solid waste disposal) over the next decade range from $6 to 8 billion. Moreover, only three years’ experience under NAFTA provides too little information to attempt an already challenging analysis of how NAFTA’s trade flows may affect the North American environment. Rather, the question that this study seeks to answer is whether the mechanisms created by NAFTA and its associated agreements have improved our ability to address North America’s persistent environmental problems, and what progress has been made over the past three years toward solving them.

The answer that is beginning to emerge from admittedly incomplete data is that NAFTA and its related institutions are a positive force for North American environmental protection, particularly as they are being complemented by Border XXI, the program of U.S.-Mexico border environmental cooperation. New, unique international institutions have been created, staffed, and are well along in fulfilling their missions. The CEC, for instance, has developed action plans for the reduction and elimination of two dangerous pesticides, chlordane and DDT, and the toxic industrial chemical PCB from the North American environment. Large wastewater treatment plants in Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo have recently been completed by the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), with assistance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To date, the BECC has certified 16 projects, which together will improve the well-being of close to one and one-half million people on both sides of the border. In their first two years of operation, the BECC and NADBank are already having a concrete impact on the border region, with seven projects under construction and additional priority projects (with an estimated cost of $500 million) targeted for the next two years. Primarily water and wastewater treatment projects, these projects often benefit small and impoverished communities. This progress is particularly notable, given that major infrastructure projects in developed countries--with fully-developed financial and institutional systems--still take years to go from concept to working infrastructure.

These NAFTA environmental institutions are now firmly established as enduring mechanisms for tackling tenacious problems throughout the continent. Even more fundamentally, these institutions are significant because they have created numerous opportunities for the governments and citizens of the three NAFTA parties to interact at all levels, thereby facilitating joint efforts to address our common environmental problems, both those we now confront and those that may arise in the future.

North American Environmental Cooperation

As many of the environmental concerns facing the three NAFTA governments predate NAFTA, efforts to address these concerns in a coordinated manner also have been ongoing for many generations. These were primarily U.S.-Mexico or U.S.-Canada bilateral initiatives, and of limited scope compared to the comprehensive range of activities now underway. The following section describes current efforts to address U.S.-Mexico environmental concerns along their 2,000 mile shared border. Many of these efforts complement activities undertaken by the CEC, BECC and NADBank, and have been reintensified by the NAFTA and its associated agreements. Moreover, they form an integral part of the framework of institutions and relationships now in place to address the effects of economic development on the North American environment.

Bilateral Cooperation

One of the early U.S.-Mexico cooperative endeavors was the establishment in 1889 of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC). The IBWC is composed of a United States Section and a Mexican Section. Since the 1930s, the IBWC has monitored border water quality and has developed international wastewater treatment and management projects.

In 1983, the U.S. and Mexican governments broadened their cooperative activities to improve the environment of the border region when they signed the Agreement for the Protection and Improvement of the Environment in the Border Area (the La Paz Agreement). Later, the environmental authorities of both governments released the Integrated Border Environmental Plan (IBEP) for the Mexican-U.S. Border Area in February 1992. The IBEP was replaced in 1996 by the Border XXI Program. Along with the NAFTA and its environmental institutions, Border XXI now forms the core of the United States’ environmental cooperative relationship with Mexico.

Border XXI operates by setting five-year objectives for achieving and sustaining a clean border environment. U.S. federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of the Interior; these agencies’ Mexican counterparts, and the IBWC, as well as state environmental, natural resources, and health agencies from both sides of the border, all play key roles in implementing this program. Nine binational workgroups operate under this program: Water, Air, Hazardous and Solid Waste, Environmental Health, Pollution Prevention, Contingency Planning and Emergency Response, Compliance Assurance and Enforcement, Natural Resources, and Information Resources Management. Activities under these workgroups, as described below, reflect the breadth of the commitment to address the serious environmental problems of the border area.

The Border XXI workgroups cooperate to resolve problems of concern to both countries. In many cases, this involves providing physical infrastructure, but it also involves capacity building, such as creating institutional infrastructure, developing training programs, monitoring mechanisms and binational environmental management programs, and providing technical assistance and access to information.

In addition, the environmental cleanup of the border area has increased the involvement of public and local organizations in the identification and resolution of the major environmental problems. The Border XXI program initiated an extensive public outreach effort during its development, and continues to build and improve on this effort through the work groups and EPA’s Border Liaison Offices. EPA’s Border Community Grants Program has also provided assistance to community organizations in the region involved in addressing specific environmental problems.

Water

Water issues on the U.S.-Mexico border do not lend themselves to short-term solutions. Careful planning is necessary to respond to the need that has not been adequately met, in many cases for decades, for clean drinking water and sewage treatment. Rapid industrialization, which has its roots in the 1965 launch of the maquila program, and population growth along the border, combined with perennial water scarcity, amplify the challenge. Combined federal, state and international jurisdictions for water resource management also present complexities. For these reasons, fully addressing wastewater collection and treatment may require decades of effort.

Nonetheless, since NAFTA’s entry into force, the United States and Mexico have made progress in addressing the water and wastewater treatment problems of border communities. For instance:

New large wastewater treatment plants have recently been completed by the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) and EPA to service Nuevo Laredo and Tijuana. The year-old Nuevo Laredo plant is effectively removing 18 million gallons per day of raw sewage which had formerly been dumped into the Rio Grande and has resulted in a significant improvement in the quality of this international river’s waters. By 1999, full operation of the already partly operational new international treatment plant between San Diego and Tijuana will protect those cities’ beaches from raw sewage for the first time in decades.

The BECC and NADBank are actively developing, financing, and building border environmental infrastructure projects. As is described more fully in the following section, seven projects are already under construction, and the BECC and NADBank are now poised to accelerate their pace of project development and approval over the next 24 months.

The IBWC, with EPA funding, is also coordinating "quick fix" repairs to sewage systems at Nogales/Nogales and Calexico/Mexicali. With EPA funding, the IBWC has also developed facilities plans for these and several other cities along the Rio Grande that are necessary for BECC certification and NADBank financing.

The states of Texas and New Mexico, with EPA assistance, have made progress in addressing the needs of the 400,000 people who live in colonias (unincorporated communities) without basic public services. A typical example is the Lull colonia, near Edinburg, Texas, where loans from federal, state, and city agencies have brought Lull’s residents indoor plumbing and sewage treatment, which most homes had previously been without.

Information has previously been limited on the location, size, quality, and capacity of transboundary surface and groundwater resources. Binational efforts are now underway to collect this information and to complete the characterization of the major transboundary groundwater resources by the year 2000. Several ongoing binational projects under the auspices of the Border XXI Water Workgroup seek to characterize the major transboundary aquifers, including those in the areas of Nogales, Arizona; Columbus, New Mexico; and El Paso and Del Rio, Texas. These projects will help the border communities plan for the rational use of their limited water resources.

Binational agreements are in place for monitoring the quality of principal surface water bodies. Two binational studies of toxic contaminants in the Rio Grande have been conducted and a third study is underway by the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) and the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission. A similar survey is underway for the New River, a part of the Colorado River basin. Through the BECC and NADBank, and under the framework of Border XXI, the United States and Mexico have jointly developed strategies and mechanisms for rehabilitating drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment, water distribution and wastewater collection infrastructure; and streamlining cooperation and increasing institutional capacity to develop integrated plans.

Air

Several major U.S. border cities fail to meet EPA air quality standards due to transborder air pollution, among other factors. These cities, classified as non-attainment areas, are required by the Clean Air Act to achieve EPA standards by the year 2005. According to 1995 population estimates, more than six million people live in areas along the border that fail to meet their respective country’s federal air health standards. As such, the United States and Mexico have recognized that it is essential to engage in joint air pollution reduction efforts.

The Joint Advisory Committee (JAC) to the Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua; El Paso, Texas; and Do¡¦ Ana County, New Mexico Air Quality Improvement Basin, is a clear example of the constructive relationship the United States and Mexico have developed for cooperating on environmental concerns in the border area. The Committee, whose members represent a cross section of the local communities and which was created at their urging, provides a means for citizens in the area to help design specific measures to improve air quality. Several issues are under consideration in the JAC, including reduction of traffic congestion on the international bridges, economic incentives for air quality improvement, the development of an air quality index for the entire air basin, and a method of publicizing air quality, on a real-time basis, to the general public.

While most border air projects are funded through grants to state and local agencies, the international nature of the issues necessitates federal leadership. The Border XXI Air Workgroup (BAW) provides this leadership. Its objectives include developing air quality assessment and improvement programs, such as monitoring and emissions inventories; building institutional infrastructure and technical expertise in the border area; and promoting air pollution abatement strategies, such as reduced vehicle emissions related to idling at border crossings and lowered emissions from brick kilns.

Some of the projects the BAW has developed to address air-related environmental concerns include:

Tijuana-San Diego, Mexicali-Imperial Valley and Ciudad Juarez-El Paso-Sunland Park: The United States and Mexico have undertaken a wide variety of programs, including advanced pollutant monitoring, emissions inventory development, modeling and identification of innovative emissions controls. The overall goal of these efforts is a management program which assesses and protects air quality.
Mexico Emissions Inventory Development Program: This program seeks to identify the most appropriate emissions estimation methods by individual source type for point areas, motor vehicles, and natural sources. The methodology will be implemented over the next two years in Mexicali and Tijuana.
Air Quality in Big Bend National Park: In 1993, EPA and the National Park Service presented air modeling results showing degradation of the air quality in Big Bend National Park in Texas. The United States and Mexico agreed in May 1996 on a multi-year field study, which is currently underway, to determine the sources of pollution contributing to the poor air quality in Big Bend.
U.S.-Mexico Information Center on Air Pollution: Officials in both countries are developing and operating an information transfer center for the border area, which provides public access to pertinent information.
Border Vehicle Congestion: The BAW has formed a subgroup to review ongoing efforts and to make recommendations on ways to reduce air quality problems caused by congestion at border crossings.

The initial focus of most of the air program is to gather reliable data in the field to develop and implement air pollution control strategies for meeting Clean Air Act standards by 2005. State and local agencies will gather air quality data in most areas along the border. Several field studies will be performed by the end of fiscal year 1997 to obtain such data.

Hazardous and Solid Waste

A Hazardous Waste Workgroup was formed under the La Paz Agreement; it has handled binational solid waste issues in the border area since 1996. The group’s focus has been on providing training to Mexican staff and managers in the waste generating industries and regulatory agencies, conducting pilot hazardous and solid waste clean-up or management projects, providing information and assistance with pollution prevention methodologies and technologies, taking enforcement actions against violators in the United States, and tracking the movement of hazardous wastes across the border. In addition, Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Ecologia (INE) has recently undertaken the development of a "vulnerability atlas" for Mexico to map out ecologically vulnerable areas and identify appropriate regions for siting waste management facilities.

One successful project is the Hazardous Waste Tracking System (HAZTRAKS), which tracks the transboundary shipments of hazardous wastes in the U.S. and Mexico. The system has an extensive array of features designed to produce reports on waste movements and enable the United States and Mexico to conduct compliance monitoring and enforcement actions under their respective import and export regulations. It has been used to take enforcement actions against several violators, and to highlight for enforcement officials irregularities needing investigation. The system is currently undergoing revision and expansion to make it more accessible to state regulators on both sides of the border, and to other agencies interested in tracking these wastes or taking enforcement actions. As it becomes more sophisticated and more widely accessible, it should provide better data on hazardous waste movement and lead to increased enforcement activity against violators.

The La Paz Agreement, the establishment of the Binational Working Groups, and the more recent development of binational five year goals for the top environmental issues along the U.S. - Mexico border have combined to strengthen cooperative work towards resolving hazardous and solid waste problems in the border area. The health and environmental stakes are high, and the work already completed is a vital beginning towards the border’s long-term sustainability.

Contingency Planning and Emergency Response

The U.S.-Mexico Joint Response Team (JRT) of the Workgroup on Contingency Planning and Emergency Response is working in several areas to minimize and reduce the risk of chemical accidents. The JRT is comprised of U.S. and Mexican federal and state agencies responsible for chemical emergency prevention, preparedness and response.

The efforts of the Workgroup on Contingency Planning and Emergency Response have led to increased public awareness of chemical risks in local communities and a united effort to reduce the risks. Sister cities -- like Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Mexico -- are working together to collect information on the chemicals produced, used, and stored in their communities and to develop plans to mitigate the effects and protect the public should a chemical accident occur. These same sister cities are also cooperating with industry to reduce chemical risks and prevent chemical accidents. The Workgroup on Contingency Planning and Emergency Response enables the two federal governments to effectively and efficiently identify and resolve issues of international concern in support of states and, more importantly, sister cities. In addition, this group continues to ensure timely notification to states and local communities of international incidents and provides emergency response support to the local communities as needed.

Pollution Prevention

Voluntary pollution prevention programs play an important role in alleviating border pollution. A number of these programs focus on the maquiladora industries as one of the many sources of pollution along the border. Some of the specific objectives of the voluntary pollution prevention programs include reducing the amount of waste generated, raw materials, water and energy being used, and air and water emissions for critical pollutants.

Historically, baseline data needed to show progress in reducing pollution have been gathered on a plant-specific basis through voluntary audits. One such voluntary program administered by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) is the Clean Texas program, whose overriding goal is to reduce hazardous waste along the Texas-Mexico border by 50 percent by the year 2000.

TNRCC’s successful program focusses on a significant volume of waste coming into Texas. In collaboration with the Mexican Attorney General for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA), this program has resulted in maquiladoras, which generate the bulk of this waste, instituting several innovative, cost-saving, waste reduction measures. Seven site visits over the last two years have resulted in annual reductions of 19,000 gallons of hazardous materials and 13,000 pounds of hazardous waste; conservation of over 350,000 gallons of water annually; and reduction of scrap materials by 1.8 million pounds. These measurable environmental results represent significant economic benefits estimated at about $2 million in total savings.

While the plant-specific reductions attained through the voluntary audit program are extremely valuable achievements, there are other important elements of the voluntary pollution prevention program which are not as readily quantified. The overall mission of this program is to demonstrate and promote the benefits of voluntary measures as a cost-effective means of reducing levels of contamination, improving the quality of life for border residents, and promoting economically and environmentally sustainable development. By working with industry, state and local governments, and private citizens, a variety of activities including outreach, education, capacity building, and compliance assistance can be implemented successfully. The following are some examples of other current and proposed projects that work towards these goals:

San Diego-Tijuana Waste Wi$e Program is a partnership of federal, state and local entities from both sides of the border aimed at reducing manufacturers' generation of solid waste. To date, on-site waste reduction assessments have been completed at 27 facilities, a waste characterization of the Tijuana landfill has been done and factored into some important solid-waste planning decisions, bilingual guidelines for solid waste reduction have been developed for the electronics and plastic injection industries, and a World Wide Web site has been set up (in Spanish and English) to disseminate project information.
Infrastructure Development Exchange with Mexico: The purpose of this program is to provide technology transfer and capacity-building assistance to state governments and maquiladora associations in pollution prevention. This consists of meetings and workshops to develop a pollution prevention element in environmental audit programs; exchange of information on active pollution prevention programs; and training to develop and improve workplace recycling and community recycling programs.
Technology Transfer and Capacity Building on Pollution Prevention with PROFEPA: Joint partner site assessments and follow-up site visits are focused on determining opportunities to implement pollution prevention and clean technology for Mexican industrial facilities. These have resulted in reductions in wastes and air emissions, and have also cumulatively saved facilities over a million dollars through pollution prevention.

Health

The need to address environmental health issues was acknowledged explicitly in NAFTA environmental side agreements and in Border XXI. The parties involved in Border XXI’s Environmental Health Workgroup (EHW) seek to increase binational cooperation between environmental and public health entities to improve the health of border communities. These collaborative efforts will improve the ability to identify and address those environmental conditions posing the highest health risks, so as to reduce exposures and other factors associated with disease rates along the border. Among the workgroup’s objectives for the first five years are:

to improve the capacity of state, local, and tribal health and environmental agencies to assess the relationship between human health and environmental exposures by conducting surveillance, monitoring and research, delivering environmental health intervention, prevention and educational services;
to increase the opportunities of stakeholders on the border (including individuals, communities, institutions and occupational groups) to participate in environmental health initiatives;
to improve training opportunities for environmental and health personnel; and
to improve public awareness and understanding of environmental exposure conditions and health problems by providing information and educational opportunities.

Efforts to achieve these objectives are currently focused on four areas: surveillance and monitoring, research, education, and communication. EPA’s Office of Research and Development is working directly with communities along the border region to understand the exposure of residents to pollution, to determine the health effects of such exposure, and to disseminate information and educational materials about preventing exposure. Some of the numerous relevant activities include monitoring and surveillance projects to develop baseline pollution exposure data and projects to evaluate particular health effects of concern to border region residents, such as evaluations of the risk to children from cumulative pesticide exposures, environmental risk factors and lupus, and the link between air pollution and acute morbidity.

Natural Resources

Both the United States and Mexico are committed to protecting our valuable natural resources in the border region. The newly created Border XXI Natural Resources Workgroup is focused on three themes: biodiversity and protected areas; forest and soil conservation; and marine and aquatic resources. Projects for the 1998 work program include binational activities in shared ecosystems such as the Lower Colorado River, the Western Sonoran Desert, the San Pedro and San Cruz Rivers, the Big Bend Area, and the Laguna Madre. Some of the activities will consist of preparing joint flora and fauna inventories, working together on assessment and restoration work, and sharing and linking natural resource management plans for protected areas.

In addition to the activities planned under Border XXI, the wildlife agencies of the U.S. and Mexico are collaborating as part of a joint NAFTA initiative for natural resource management in three priority areas in response to mutually important conservation challenges: (1) local capacity building/training; (2) sustaining ecosystems; and (3) information transfer/management. There is also a need to promote development strategies within rural communities (which often may become marginalized by large-scale economic development activities) in order that they may use their resource-base in creative and productive ways. Project partners include government (federal, state, municipal), non-government organizations, academic institutions, and indigenous and peasant communities.

Another initiative, the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Program, seeks to address, avoid or minimize the impacts of growth and development on the fish and wildlife resources and their related habitats in six ecosystems along the international border.

State of the Environment in the Border Area

Much of the previous section describes new initiatives for monitoring and assessing pollution along the border. The monitoring information that is being gathered through these initiatives can not yet be relied on to establish a change in long-term trends in border pollution. In some cases monitoring and tracking systems have only recently been established; in others, the data available at this time is insufficient to draw conclusions. For example, air monitoring data for 1995 have only recently been made available, and two years of data are not enough to draw conclusions about trends. Likewise, much of the increase in information in the HAZTRAKS database may be attributed to an improvement of the system as well as an increase in compliance rates of (and consequently better reporting by) industries as a result of enforcement actions attributed to the use of the system.

Two reports have been developed on environmental conditions in the U.S.-Mexico border area. These reports, "U.S./Mexico Border Environmental Study Toxics Release Inventory Data, 1988-1992" (dated February 1996), and "U.S./Mexico Border Environmental Report, Surface Water Quality" (released July 1996), help to establish the baseline data for this area prior to NAFTA. A third report, "U.S./Mexico Border Environmental Study: Air Quality 1985-1994," is still in draft.

While an attempt at quantitative analysis would be premature, it is clear that in the last three years the border area has seen a number of environmental success stories. Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo’s recently completed large wastewater treatment plants will now spare the San Diego/Tijuana beaches and Rio Grande, respectively, from the effects of raw sewage, markedly improving water quality in those communities. Also, the efforts made through working with state and local partnerships has resulted in the development of pollution prevention programs, achieving reductions in water use and hazardous and solid wastes generated, and infrastructure projects benefitting residents of the "colonias," unincorporated communities without basic public services, in New Mexico and Texas. In terms of reducing the risk from spills involving hazardous materials, the first formal joint contingency plan for a sister city pair has been finalized for Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, which will serve as an effective model for other sister cities along the border.

A survey the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico recently conducted of its manufacturing-based membership may shed some more light on what U.S. companies are doing to address environmental problems. Despite the lingering effects of the peso devaluation and ensuing recession, over half of the survey’s respondents reported making investments at their plants throughout Mexico in technology or equipment to improve their environmental controls in the last three and one-half years. Of those that reported making investments, the median amount was $200,000. Additionally, more than 60 percent of the respondents reported that they have implemented new industrial hygiene and safety measures since January 1994.

Environmental Enforcement in Mexico

Since 1992, EPA has cooperated extensively with Mexico on the establishment of a credible enforcement program, with the border area a prime focus. From 1992 to 1996, Mexico conducted 12,347 inspection and compliance verification visits in the border area, partially or totally closing 548 facilities, and fining 9,844 facilities. As a result, Mexico reports a 72 percent reduction in serious violations in the maquiladora industry from 1993 to 1996, and a 43 percent increase in the number of maquiladora facilities in complete compliance.

The United States and Mexico have also cooperated to build Mexico’s enforcement capacity to protect our shared environment. Training of environmental and customs inspectors and policy makers enhances both countries’ enforcement capacity. Over 660 Mexican environmental inspectors have been trained since 1992, of which 460 are in the border states. The United States has provided training to Mexican inspectors in environmental criminal enforcement as well as hazardous waste inspection. Efforts for the remainder of 1997 will focus on water discharge inspections, and investigatory sampling techniques.

In 1996, EPA trained over 220 inspectors from U.S. and Mexican customs, environmental and other federal and state law enforcement agencies in the interdiction of illegal shipments of ozone-depleting substances, in 20 workshops presented at seven border crossings and water ports. In FY95, EPA conducted a joint training program for U.S. and Mexican customs and environmental inspectors in transboundary hazardous waste shipment compliance monitoring, training over 230 inspectors from both countries at 12 major border crossings. In 1996, EPA worked with state environmental agencies to build their capacity to continue this cooperative training on a routine basis. As examples, Texas and California routinely train U.S. and Mexican customs inspectors in hazardous waste compliance, through formal training conducted almost monthly and more routine informal training during border crossing inspections.

The Mexican government has instituted an innovative auditing program to promote industry leadership in voluntary compliance. The program has grown to maturity since its initiation in 1992, with 274 facilities entering the program in 1996. As of April 1997, 617 facilities have completed environmental audits, and 404 have signed Action Plans to implement recommended improvements to attain, continually assure, and exceed compliance. The Action Plans represent more than $800 million in environmental improvement investments in Mexico.

EPA Region 6 has also worked with the Mexican government on an innovative approach to an enforcement action against an American company regarding hazardous waste import violations. As part of the settlement award, in addition to changes at the facility, the company committed $200,000 for further pollution prevention measures (reducing hazardous wastes, air emissions and water discharges) at the plant involved in the case.

Continue on to Chapter 4: Activities of NAFTA's Environmental Institutions

Chapter 4: the North American Environment: Cooperation, Institutions, and Enforcement

Chapter 4: the North American Environment:
Cooperation, Institutions, and Enforcement