-Caveat Lector- The Environment ....................................................................... When NAFTA was being debated in 1993, concerns were raised that additional industrial activity generated by NAFTA would exacerbate pre-existing environmental and public health problems caused by a high concentration of export manufacturing plants in the free trade zone along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Clinton Administration echoed these concerns, agreeing that the "maquiladora" sector posed a grave risk to border ecology and public health. The Administration promised that NAFTA would relieve pressure on the border region by extending trade benefits to Mexico's interior, thus reducing the incentive for U.S. industrial firms to locate along the border. Indeed, the Administration went so far as to claim that without NAFTA, the growth of the maquiladora sector would cause an environmentally devastating spiral of industrial and population growth and resulting air and water pollution.(41) Yet rather than reversing, this trend has accelerated. During NAFTA's first five years the maquiladora zone along the U.S.-Mexico border has undergone explosive growth, compounding pre-existing environmental and health problems. The latest count puts the number of border maquiladoras at 1,947, 37% more than in 1993.(42) In Tijuana alone, maquiladora employment has skyrocketed by 92%.(43) Worse, the promised clean-ups and new environmental infrastructure never materialized. And NAFTA has been wielded as a weapon to attack federal and subfederal environmental and public health safeguards, with a series of legal challenges to countries' environmental laws launched by corporations using NAFTA's investment provisions (Chapter 11). Corporations Use NAFTA to Attack Environmental Laws: Of the seven known challenges using NAFTA's investor right-to-sue-governments provisions, six involve U.S. corporations attacking federal- or state-level environmental measures in Canada and Mexico.(44) In three cases, the U.S.-based companies are suing Mexico for the right to open hazardous waste disposal facilities.(45) The other three cases involve U.S.-based corporations suing Canada claiming environmental laws are "regulatory takings" against which NAFTA created new investor rights. These include a British Columbia ban on the export - by tanker - of water to the United States; a federal public health ban on the import of a toxic gasoline additive; and a federal rule temporarily banning the export of PCBs for disposal.(46) The best known of these is the Ethyl Corporation's successful 1997 claim against Canada, which forced the Canadian government to kill a major public health law. For a discussion of the Ethyl case, see page . Hazardous Waste Transports Up Under NAFTA: Hazardous waste imports into the United States in 1997 (the latest year for which data is available) are higher than in 1993 - or than any time in the 1990s - and have increased 50% since 1996 alone.(47) EPA attributes this increase in hazardous waste trade to the increase in maquiladoras under NAFTA; hazardous waste imports into the U.S. are expected to continue to rise as the number of maquiladoras grows.(48) This increase heightens the risks of contamination due to spills during transport. Indeed, Mexican trucks are almost twice as likely as U.S. trucks to be forced out of service for failing inspections.(49) Toxic Dumping Remains a Big Problem: Despite the increase in the transport of hazardous waste across the border, five years after NAFTA much maquiladora waste is still unaccounted for.(50) The problem of illegal dumping of hazardous waste along the U.S.-Mexico border is well-documented; among the total 2,900 Mexican maquiladoras, only 751 compliance manifests on the proper disposal of hazardous waste have been filed since 1991.(51) After NAFTA, Lack of Promised Clean-Up: More than four years after its closure, 6,000 metric tons of lead remain at the Metales y Derivados site in Tijuana, Mexico.(52) The plant, owned by the San Diego-based New Frontier Trading Corp., operated a smelter. It was shut down four years ago. Despite the risk to local residents and efforts of local environmental groups, the Mexican government has failed even to begin clean-up.(53) Surge in Industrial Activity in Tijuana Leads to $250 Million Mess South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant Will Dump 25 Million Gallons of Waste Daily a Few Miles off Pacific Coast Starting in early 1999, each day 25 million gallons of "treated," but still toxic Mexican sewage will be discharged off of Imperial Beach, California.(54) An International Wastewater Treatment Plant, being constructed on the U.S. side of the border for a cost of $250 million, will treat sewage from Tijuana. The city has undergone a 92% explosion in maquiladora employment under NAFTA,(55) but did not have infrastructure to treat the pre-boom waste water.(56) With "treated" sewage dumped into 100 ft. deep water only a few miles from the shore, testing conducted by the U.S. EPA has determined that it will fail to meet acute toxicity limits of the U.S. Clean Water Act.(57) Some of the toxic substances found in Tijuana's sewage system include dioxins, pesticides including DDT, solvents, and heavy metals.(58) Compounding the potential health risks caused by exposure to dioxins and heavy metals and the threat to marine life, the water where the dumping will occur contains currents which circulate water back towards land. No Sewage Treatment to Handle Increased Growth Under NAFTA: Under NAFTA, maquiladora employment increased by 54% in Ciudad Juarez, spurring significant population growth.(59) Yet Juarez still has no waste treatment facility to treat the sewage produced by the 1.3 million people who now live there.(60) Environmental Inspections Down Under NAFTA: Despite increased industrial activity, inspections of water, hazardous waste, air pollution emissions and toxic sites decreased between 1995 and 1996 (the last year for which information is available) on both the U.S. and Mexican sides of the border.(61) Air Pollution Exacerbated by Increased Border Traffic: The U.S.-Mexico border is clogged with record levels of truck traffic as imports surge to the U.S. from Mexico. Traffic through Texas has increased 19% since 1994,(62) to a level of 17,582 trucks per day.(63) In the five years since NAFTA, the number of trucks crossing California's San Diego Otay Mesa border has more than doubled, from 450,000(64) to 1,000,000.(65) According to the EPA, border area residents are exposed to health-threatening levels of air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, and now the following U.S. border areas exceed ambient air quality standards: El Paso, TX; Dona Ana County, NM; Imperial County, CA; San Diego, CA; Douglas, AZ; Nogales, AZ and Yuma AZ.(66) Public Health ....................................................................... Concerns about new threats to food safety raised during the 1993 NAFTA debate were dismissed with promises of improved practices in Mexico and better border inspection. Yet NAFTA and its implementing bill weakened existing food safety standards, for instance allowing meat and poultry imports that did not meet U.S. safety standards - and specifically limited border inspection (see NAFTA 717). Under NAFTA, the U.S. has experienced a major upswing in produce imports from Mexico. At the same time, the US Food and Drug Administration now inspects far less imported food than it did prior to NAFTA. The result with volume up and inspection down: Americans in every state now face a substantially greater risk of exposure to unsafe food as a direct result of NAFTA. In addition, serious public health problems in border communities linked to high levels of environmental contamination generated by maquiladora production have worsened under NAFTA. In particular, certain types of fatal birth defects and sanitation-related diseases are on the rise. I. Food Safety Volume of Food Imports is Up Under NAFTA: U.S. agricultural imports from Canada and Mexico have increased 57% since 1993. Five years after NAFTA, 52% of all U.S. fruit and vegetable imports come from Mexico.(67) Food Safety Inspection is Down: During this same period, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections of imported food declined from 8% of total imports to less than 2%.(68) No Minimum Food Safety Standards Required Under NAFTA: NAFTA does not require member countries to maintain a minimum level of food safety standards. The flood of fruit and vegetable imports from Mexico coincides with severe cuts to Mexico's domestic food inspection budget. In 1992, Mexico's spending on food safety was US$25 million, but by 1995 had been slashed to US$5 million.(69) Poisonous "NAFTA-Berries": In 1997, an outbreak of potentially-fatal Hepatitis A from frozen strawberries imported from Mexico sickened 270 people in five U.S. states, including 130 children in Michigan. The children had received the strawberries through the federal government's nationwide school lunch program.(70) NAFTA's 717 forbids special, more rigorous inspections on Mexican produce imports. Despite Pesticide Contamination, Mexican Strawberry Imports Flood into U.S.: In 1993, imported strawberries from Mexico were found to have an 18.4% violation rate for illegal levels of pesticides. Five years later, Mexican strawberry imports into the U.S. have increased 31% under NAFTA, and comprise 96% of total U.S. strawberry imports. Latest NAFTA Food Safety Crisis: Contaminated Parsley from Mexico leads to Hemispheric Shigellosis Outbreak Minnesota state health officials attribute a shigellosis outbreak in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area this past summer to parsley imported from Mexico. Shigellosis is caused by fecal contamination of food products and is contagious. Over 150 people were sickened. Imported Mexican parsley has since been linked to outbreaks this past summer in 3 other states and two Canadian provinces.(71) II. Environmentally Linked Health Threats Water Contamination Under NAFTA Leads to Hepatitis A Outbreaks: Contamination of the Rio Grande River during NAFTA has been well documented. Extensive testing has revealed that extreme fecal contamination leaves border residents at risk for Hepatitis A.(72) According to the Texas Department of Health, since NAFTA went into effect the Hepatitis A rate for Cameron County shot up from 17.8/100,000 residents to 87.4/100,000 - an increase of almost 400%. The Hepatitis A rate for Maverick County increased by 122% since 1993 (from 82.5/100,000 to 183/100,00 in 1997). Webb County's rate also increased - by 78% - from 59.6/100,000 in 1993 to 105.9/100,000 in 1997.(73) Border Birth Defect Clusters Continue: By 1998, five years after NAFTA went into effect, the neural tube defect rate for babies born in Cameron County, TX has climbed to 19/10,000 babies, almost twice the national average.(74) The public health crises plaguing the U.S.-Mexico border attracted intense media scrutiny in 1991 after three babies were born with a rare condition called anencephaly (born brainless) during a 36 hour period at the same Cameron County (Brownsville) Hospital. Then-Treasury Secretary Bentsen promised in 1993 that "I've seen the babies born with defects. The NAFTA package gives us the ability to assure that [those problems] will be addressed."(75) The problems have not been addressed, but are worsening, as demonstrated by the situation in Cameron County - and in a post-NAFTA birth defect cluster in Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedra Negras, Mexico where the Texas Department of Health's Neural Tube Defect Surveillance Projects reported a new cluster of defects in 1995.(76) Indeed, the Department recently declared that, "The entire border area remains a high-risk area [for neural tube defects] compared to the rest of the U.S."(77) Increased Industrial Activity Under NAFTA Directly Correlated to Increased Birth Defects: A 1995 study of neural tube defects along the Cameron Country/Matamoros border finds a 12-year correlation between expansion and contractions in nearby Matamoros maquila industrial activity and increases and decreases in the anencephaly rate in Cameron County.(78) Between 1997 and 1998, the rate of neural tube defects in babies born in Cameron County jumped a staggering 53%;(79) during the same period, maquila employment in Matamoros increased 15%.(80) DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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