For Immediate Release:                                                                                    Contact: César Luna, Diane Takvorian 
       July 17, 2001                                                                                                                              (619) 235-0281

Communities March for Border Environmental Justice
San Diego/Tijuana residents send a message to Presidents Fox and Bush: 

• NAFTA has failed! No fast-track negotiating authority for Bush for 
  the Free Trade Area of the Americas

• Clean up Metales y Derivados Now!

(San Diego, CA) -- The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has allowed U.S.-owned businesses to turn Mexico into a toxic dumping ground. Today more than one hundred San Diego and Tijuana residents and members of Environmental Health Coalition marched in protest to the offices of New Frontier Trading Corp., the U.S. parent company of Metales y Derivados. Metales is an abandoned lead smelter containing 6,000 metric tons of lead slag that continues to poison children and families in Colonia Chilpancingo, Tijuana, home to 10,000 residents.

Carrying signs with messages like "Clean Up Metales Now!" and "No Fast Track for Bush", Colonia Chilpancingo residents, San Diego and Tijuana environmental and labor groups, and others demanded the cleanup of Metales and that Congress deny President Bush Fast Track negotiating authority for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). While the evidence is clear that NAFTA has failed to protect the environment, Bush is promoting it as a model for the FTAA, which would expand NAFTA to 34 countries and cover almost all of North, Central and South America.

On June 13, H.R. 2149 , the Trade Promotion Authority Act of 2001 was introduced in Congress. Like the authority granted for the negotiation of NAFTA, the legislation would give President Bush the authority

to negotiate the FTAA without significant Congressional or public input. The Bush Administration is pushing for a quick vote on Fast Track negotiating authority which could come this month in the House of Representatives.

"All members of the San Diego Congressional delegation must say no to the proposed Fast Track authority," said Diane Takvorian, Executive Director of Environmental Health Coalition. "Trade agreements can be fair and reasonable when they guarantee fundamental environmental and worker rights to the same degree that they protect corporate interests. But the FTAA falls far short of this standard."

Policymakers hailed NAFTA as the first trade agreement to link trade issues and the environment. Its "green" promises rested on an environmental side agreement that touted enhanced levels of environmental protection and public participation. This agreement created the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), a tri-national institution whose sole purpose is to "… promote the effective enforcement of environmental law." No authority was granted, however to enable the CEC to achieve that mandate.

In October 1998, Environmental Health Coalition and a citizen’s group from Colonia Chilpancingo filed a petition with the CEC regarding Mexico's failure to enforce its environmental laws in the Metales y Derivados case. In June 2000, the CEC declared that the petition warranted further investigation and ordered a factual record prepared. Today, as Chilpancingo residents continue to wait, the CEC "studies" the case. Even if the CEC determines that the Mexican government failed to effectively enforce its environmental laws, it cannot force Mexico to correct the problem. The Metales case is not an exception. Since 1995, 30 citizen petitions have been filed with the CEC. Only two have had factual records prepared. Half have been dismissed and "action is pending" on the remainder.

"NAFTA failed to reconcile the vast differences between the economies and infrastructure of the United States and Mexico. Now, Mexico alone must shoulder the burden of irresponsible foreign companies like Metales y Derivados. The parent company, New Frontier Trading Company, operates comfortably in San Diego with profits made in Tijuana at the expense of residents and neighboring communities," said César Luna, EHC policy advocate.

Andrea Aguilar, a resident of Colonia Chilpancingo for more than 18 years, detailed the health problems she and her family have suffered because of toxic pollution from maquiladoras like Metales y Derivados. The Alamar river that flows 600 yards from Chilpancingo is rank with raw sewage and industrial wastewater, a byproduct of maquiladoras operating in the Mesa de Otay Industrial Park just a few hundred yards away. Both Aguilar and her children are plagued by unexplained illnesses, including allergies, rashes and blisters that scar their bodies.

"My children have had rashes that start as big pimples that later turn into blisters that finally leave a scab. My oldest on has scars from these pimples. The doctor had skin tests done on him and told us the pimples were reactions to a chemical in his environment. I know it’s because he goes out to play and the dirt around here has many toxic residues. It has to be that because we are very close to an abandoned factory where there is battery waste," Aguilar said. "I only ask for help to clean up the environment where we live and where my children are growing up. Please help us clean the excessive pollution that surrounds us, especially the Metales y Derivados factory that affects all of us."

The Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente (PROFEPA), the Mexican equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency, last year identified a total of 192 toxic sites in Mexico. Of these, 49 are in border states. Seven are in the border zone, within 62 miles of the U.S. border. Six of these seven are classified as highly toxic, including Metales y Derivados.

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