The international significance of an instance of urban environmental inequity in Tijuana, Mexico.

• Author: Yang, Tseming

INTRODUCTION

Much of the literature about the environmental justice movement has focused on the domestic face of environmental equity problems. Yet, issues of environmental equity also appear abroad. The case of Metales y Derivados, an abandoned lead smelter in Tijuana, Mexico, and the impacts it has had on its surrounding community, Colonia Chilpancingo, illustrate environmental inequity vividly. This essay looks at the events that led to the current situation and what implications Metales may have for addressing issues of environmental justice at international and domestic levels.

1. METALES Y DERIVADOS

   Metales y Derivados is a former open-air lead smelting operation located in Tijuana, Mexico. (1) It is located only a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, and within an easy commute from San Diego.

   The primary business of Metales had been recycling used car and boat batteries and other lead scrap for lead and valuable metals. Most of the input materials came from the United States. After years of operation, however, Metales was left to its own devices by its owners in 1995.

   Metales had been operated by its San Diego based U.S. parent company, New Frontier Trading, and the shareholders, Jose Kahn and his family, in violation of various Mexican environmental regulations for a number of years. Many surrounding residents attributed respiratory problems, skin rashes, and even birth defects to the pollution emissions of Metales. (2) Even years after the facility stopped operating, a study of area children found elevated blood lead levels. (3) When Metales had failed to comply with a number of notices of violation, the Mexican government shut down the facility, filed criminal charges, and then issued a criminal arrest warrant for Jose Kahn. Kahn then abandoned the facility and returned, unscathed, to the United States.

   What Kahn left behind were several thousand cubic meters of soil contaminated with lead, other heavy metals, thousands of broken plastic battery casings. Much of it was spread out over a several acre site. In place of the former smelting operation facility, there is now only a building skeleton of steel beams with hundreds of sacks and drums containing lead smelter slag. (4)

   For almost a decade, residents from the surrounding community have demonstrated and lobbied government agencies on both sides of the border and the Kahns to clean up Metales. Other than some half-hearted measures, such as fencing and plastic tarps to cover some of the wastes, little has been done. Meanwhile rain and wind have carried lead-laden dust and soil from the site into Colonia Chilpancingo, a community just a few hundred yards downhill.

   Solutions to the toxic waste remain elusive. A Mexican government study found that even site stabilization--capping the site with asphalt to prevent more of the heavy metals from being carried offsite by the elements--will cost almost $1 million. Removal and disposal of the contaminated soils from the site, a more thorough and environmentally responsible clean-up program that would be safer from a long-term perspective, would cost about $7 million.

   Since Mexico has no toxic waste clean-up program equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ("EPA") Superfund, government officials have never attempted any publicly financed efforts to address the contamination. Instead, they have maintained that clean-up remains the responsibility of New Frontier Trading and Jose Kahn. Unfortunately, Kahn has not set foot back in Mexico, making any efforts of holding him responsible there unlikely.

   Despite this bleak picture, the community has been able to achieve some successes. The community's situation is relatively well known among those working on issues dealing with the border environment. It has been the subject of an investigation and a factual record endorsed by the environment ministers of the three North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA") nations. (5) That official factual record, released in 2002, confirmed the community's claims not only with respect to environmental mismanagement but also governmental failures to respond to the problems. News articles documenting the situation have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, (6) Los Angeles Times, (7) Washington Post, (8) and the San Diego Union Tribune, (9) as well as on National Public Radio. (10) A 1999 EPA Environmental Justice Advisory Council conference on border environmental justice issues focused attention on Metales and introduced both Mexican and U.S. environmental officials to the situation. (11) In the summer of 2003, Victor Lichtinger, then head of the Mexican environmental ministry, made promises to act. Unfortunately, not more than a month later, Lichtinger was dismissed from his job by Mexican President Vincente Fox. Nevertheless, the attention Metales has garnered over the years has led members of the Mexican parliament to consider legislation creating a clean-up fund for abandoned hazardous waste sites, similar to the U.S. Superfund.

2. METALES, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND COMMUNITY JUSTICE

   Metales y Derivados might be seen as an aberration--a cautionary tale of what happens when the environmental regulatory system fails. Yet, many environmentalists and especially environmental justice activists would find such a view too optimistic.

   There can be little doubt that the impacts on the community and the environment were likely exacerbated by Metales' particular circumstances. It was a relatively small operation that appeared to have been run on a shoe-string budget and with little environmental sophistication. It seems unlikely that large industrial operations would violate Mexican environmental regulations as blatantly as did Metales.

   It is the...