U.S. Water News Online
PHOENIX -- Residents on both sides of the border are upset about a proposed Mexican hazardous-waste landfill that would cover more than 200 acres on a site where water flows toward the Gulf of California and the wind blows toward Arizona.
The only thing now blocking the landfill, which would be 25 miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, is the opposition of the Mexican city of Sonoyta, which has refused to issue a permit out of concern for residents' health and safety.
Activists say they'll keep fighting until the proposed site is changed.
"We want a dialogue. We want answers. We want the truth," said Dr. David Mota Cienfuegos, an orthodontist and lifelong Sonoyta resident.
Recently, about 1,000 Sonoyta residents protesting the landfill blockaded the main road from Puerto Penasco, Mexico, a community popular with U.S. tourists. Arizona and Pima County officials say the landfill's plans don't ensure the safety of surrounding residents and natural resources.
Activists from the Tohono O'odham Nation, an American Indian community straddling the border, are also outraged. Tribal members hold an annual sacred ceremony less than 13 miles from the proposed landfill.
The project has gone through Mexico's permitting process with little input from local residents and belated notice to the United States.
Mexico and the United States signed an agreement in 1999 requiring both countries to inform the other within 30 days of becoming aware of any hazardous-waste facility proposed within 62 miles of the border.
But Mexico's secretary for the environment and natural resources didn't inform the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about the proposed landfill until September 2005, long past the 30-day deadline.
The EPA concluded in a report this month that the landfill poses no risk to the United States and that the agency will take no further action to dissuade Mexico from its plans.
But the EPA noted several times in its report that there is insufficient information to accurately assess all the risks.
It's unclear what hazardous waste the landfill will accept.
The EPA notes what it won't take in, things like radioactive materials, explosives and infectious biological waste. It could, however, accept corrosives, cyanide and solvents as many U.S. hazardous-waste sites do.
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