News-Sentinel.com

Story entered Thursday, 03/18/1999

NAFTA

River, air defiled as Rio valley develops

By LYNNE McKENNA FRAZIER and C. SOMODEVILLA of The News-Sentinel



News-Sentinel photo by C. Somodevilla
Hot time-s A resident of the bo-rder town of Reynosa, Mexico, walks casually by an open pit spewing flames and smoke into the sky above the local PemMex plant. PemMex is Mexico's only oil and gas company.

McALLEN, Texas — NAFTA is opening a narrow window of opportunity for David Blankenship.

Large farm owners in south Texas, who are losing out to cheaper production south of the border, are listening to sales overtures. And Blankenship is interested in that land to extend a wildlife corridor along the Rio Grande.

"The main thing we can do is try to acquire as much land in this corridor area as we can and try to keep it as protected as possible," said Blankenship, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Blankenship daily works with a centerpiece of habitat preservation in the valley — the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge. The south Texas native is supervisory biologist at the refuge.

But the pristine refuge stands in stark contrast to much of the valley.

Federal and state studies report on environmental dangers along the 1,254-mile-long Rio Grande.

Raw sewage flows into the river from streams in Mexico. Pesticide-laced ground water seeps into it, and high levels of manufacturing plant discharges are growing concerns.

With the proliferation of factories outpacing the development of infrastructure that can handle toxic byproducts, millions of dollars will need to be spent to protect water, air, wildlife and people on both sides of the border.

Three of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States are along the border with Mexico, home to more than 10 million people.

The Texas Senate Interim Committee on the North American Free Trade Agreement estimates that over the next decade $6 billion to $8 billion in improvements is needed to meet environmental protection needs.

Leading the list is wastewater treatment. In Reynosa, Mexico, 74 percent of the population has sewer services, while in Matamoros, Mexico, it's 70 percent, according to a report to the Texas Senate.

Juarez, Mexico, for example, with a population of more than 1.2 million, has never had a public sewer treatment plant and produces 75 million gallons of raw sewage each day.

NAFTA has attracted more people, more industry, more cars and more trucks with hazardous chemicals than can be accommodated.

The Rio Grande downstream from El Paso-Juarez is considered unsafe for swimming as a result of pollution, and many stretches of the river are unsafe for contact with human skin, according to the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.

To foster binational cooperation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Mexico organized Border XXI, a program to improve environmental conditions, natural resource management and human health. EPA Region 6, which includes the valley area, also funds the Rio Grande Alliance, an international forum that fosters communication between the agencies and other interests within the Rio Grande basin.

The North American Development Bank was created to fund environmental projects. As of March 1998, NADBank had approved more than $470 million in loans for 20 environmental projects expected to benefit 8 million people throughout Mexico and the border states in the United States.

Air quality is an issue, especially because of increased traffic.

"Air is a problem. You see the backup of these trucks (waiting at checkpoints) coming across the border and those engines sitting there going brmmm, brmm, brmm," said Mary Lou Campbell, a longtime environmental activist in the valley.

Mexican fuel is lower-grade than in the United States, which could create more of a problem as trucks from Mexico travel farther into the United States.

The proliferation of bridges to accommodate traffic is also destroying habitat and preventing wildlife from crossing the river, Campbell said. Bridges can be built well, but privately owned ones often give short shrift to environmental issues.

And the number of bridges is likely to increase, Campbell said. "Every little whistle stop wants a bridge."

Eunice Trotter contributed to this story.