Julio Huato:
>IMO, at least to the extent that it affects most directly the lives of
>people in Mexico, the worst environmental conditions are associated not with
>modern capitalist production but with backward, transitional forms of
>capitalist production and even pre-capitalist production. (I mean 'pre-'
>in a logical, not only in a historical sense -- absence of a market of free
>laborers, production not yet organized by capitalist entrepreneurs who under
>competitive pressure tend to revolutionize the technical conditions of
>production.)
The Boston Globe, July 12, 1994, Tuesday, City Edition
On Mexico's border, 'prosperity' has an ugly side
By Diego Ribadeneira, Globe Staff
NOGALES, Mexico -- Paradise lost. Those are the words many here use to
describe this remote and beautiful corner where Mexico meets Arizona.
A once-pristine region of deep blue skies, soaring cactus-dotted mountains
and spectacular sunsets has been laid waste by industrialization run amok,
many residents say.
The villains, they charge, are the maquiladoras, the Spanish word for the
US assembly plants that have set up shop in Mexico within eyesight of the
United States.
The maquilas, as the plants are called in the local vernacular, were
supposed to bring jobs and prosperity. But critics say they have brought
mostly destruction and disease. The air and water are choked with
cancer-causing toxins, residents and scientists say. Raw sewage runs
through densely populated neighborhoods.
The huge municipal dump used by the maquilas is a Dickensian nightmare.
Squatters sift through pools of greenish slime looking for copper wire that
they can sell. Pigs, who will later be eaten, forage through mounds of
garbage. And the dump, filled with rubber and plastic, regularly catches
fire and sends noxious plumes of white smoke hundreds of feet into the air.
There are wrenching tales along much of the 2,000-mile border between the
United States and Mexico, where an explosion of about 2,000 maquila plants
in the last 25 years has wreaked havoc on poor border communities
unequipped to cope with such rapid and unplanned growth. The result is an
environmental and health disaster that no one seems to know how to
alleviate. In a 1989 report on the maquiladoras, the American Medical
Association described the area around the industries as a "cesspool and
breeding ground for infectious disease."
Many fear the situation will get worse. The implementation of the North
American Free Trade Agreement at the start of this year is expected to fuel
industrial growth in Mexico, further taxing an ailing infrastructure that
in many places is incapable of providing such basics as safe, clean
drinking water and adequate sewage treatment facilities.
"I've been here 4 1/2 years, and I don't see any kind of plan for the
border," said Patrick A. Zurick, director of the Santa Cruz County Health
Department, which includes Nogales, Ariz. "What's happening here is
affecting people on both sides of the border, and I just don't see the
level of urgency commensurate with the severity of the problem."
Drawn by assembly plant jobs that pay about $ 8 a day - far more than they
could make in their home communities - thousands of poor Mexicans have
flocked to this cluttered community. Nogales' population has jumped from
100,000 a decade ago to an estimated 250,000 today. Many factory workers
live in colonias, fetid slums that have no sewage system, no running water
and where people live in cardboard, wood and tin homes.
Despite conditions that are appalling by American standards, most maquila
workers say they consider themselves fortunate because they came from worse
living conditions. "It's all relative," said Jose Maria Morales, who works
at an electronics factory and lives in a crowded slum near the burning
dump. "I know we should be treated better, but at least we're not hungry."
Many of the assembly plants in Nogales produce electronic parts, such as
computer components or cable television boxes, and generate toxic solvents
as waste products. Environmentalists say the solvents are disposed of
improperly and enter the air and ground water. And because the wind and the
water flows north, whatever pollution occurs on the Mexican side flows into
the United States.
Industry officials defend their production practices, dismiss accusations
that they cause environmental and health problems, and assert that they
comply with Mexican environmental laws. "The maquiladora industry basically
operates under the same environmental standards that companies do on the US
side," said Marco Antonio Valenzuela, executive director of the maquiladora
association, which represents 78 assembly plants employing 20,000 people in
Nogales, 43 percent of the local labor force.
Valenzuela said the entire industry is being unfairly tainted by the
unethical actions of a few firms. "Certainly, there have been some
companies who may have not done things correctly, but the majority are
concerned about protecting the environment," he said. "We have to live here
as well."
Although Mexican law specifies how hazardous waste should be transported
and disposed, the government lacks the resources and manpower to ensure
that the regulations are followed. For example, the Mexican government
agency responsible for monitoring the maquilas has no officials in Nogales.
Mexico does not have enough sites to properly treat hazardous waste, and
unlike the United States, does not place limits on the amount of toxins
that can be dumped into sewers, nor does it require industries to disclose
the kind and quantity of hazardous waste they are creating.
A 1992 report by the US General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative
arm, found that none of the maquiladora plants surveyed in a random sample
were in compliance with Mexican environmental laws. About half of the
maquila plants produce hazardous waste, according to the Mexican
government. The GAO study found that only 5 percent of the maquilas had met
legal requirements that they return hazardous waste to the United States
for treatment.
Where does the rest of the waste end up? People here believe in the soil,
water and air.
Air samples taken over the past few years in Nogales, Ariz., show high
concentrations of carcinogens, such as trichloroethylene and
tetrachlorethylene, that come from solvents left over in electronics
manufacturing.
Researchers at the University of Arizona are trying to determine if there
is a definitive link between environmental pollution and abnormally high
rates of cancer and lupus, a disease that attacks the immune system. On one
street in Nogales, Ariz., 16 cases of cancer have been recorded in 14
homes. A study of death certificates by a residents group found that 290 of
the 600 people in Nogales, Ariz., who died between 1986 and 1992 had been
victims of some form of cancer - twice the national average.
"It's just too much of a coincidence that the incidence of these diseases
started at the same time that the maquilas came around," said Ana Acuna,
president of Living Is for Everyone, a grass-roots organization made up
mostly of people with cancer or lupus that works to call attention to
Nogales' environmental and health woes.
"We're in a terrible struggle," said Acuna, who has lupus. "These are not
mom and pop stores. These are Fortune 500 companies . . . being fought by
people who are sick. A lot of people here are angry and nervous. You know
what it's like not to be able to work in your own back yard because you're
afraid of what you're breathing in? This used to be a nice place to live,
but not anymore. This isn't the Nogales I knew and loved."
Louis Proyect
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