Figure 1
The San Diego-Tijuana Border Area
A Deteriorating Cesspool or an Ecologically Sustainable Region:
The Future of Interdependence in
the San Diego-Tijuana Corridor
Bryan A. Roe
For these [environmental] effects can no longer be contained within national boundaries ... Environmental globalization occurs, as it were, beyond the political imagination of ësovereign' nation-states. The example of environmental globalization is just one, albeit the most dramatic, of a number of ways in which the old order is breaking down. The incapacity of sovereign nation-states to deal with the material side-effects of their own and others' industrial and technological practices has its parallel in the complex and anarchic interdependence of the world money markets. All this can be viewed in terms of a cultural experience of globalization which extends to all countries of the world.John Tomlinson
Compelling evidence of deepening globalization and the declining relevance of political boundaries can be found in the way barriers to cross-border interactions have crumbled in North America in the wake of NAFTA. The resulting increasing intensification of transnational activity has created, in turn, new challenges for previously isolated areas. This chapter examines one of the most rapidly growing regions in the world, the San Diego-Tijuana corridor, and evaluates how the reduction in political and economic barriers between a developed and a less developed economy affects the regional environment. With this trend towards globalization in mind, a central theme of the chapter is the need to recognize the diverse levels of interdependence between two sides of the border. It is these interdependencies that constantly confront decision makers and challenge their ability to resolve problems, while also increasing the necessity to conceptually identify the web of interconnections that link and complicate specific environmental issues. Thus, there are both geographical and conceptual, issue-oriented components to be explored. Improving our understanding of the interdependence of the "twin-cities" and the interconnectedness of their shared transnational pollution problems will be essential to changing the current development path and providing for the future long-term sustainability of the region.
During the NAFTA debate in the early 1990s many analysts questioned and made predictions concerning how the comprehensive trade agreement would impact the border environment where the developed world intersects with a less developed economy. Empirically, border regions, such as the San Diego-Tijuana area, have been sites of active economic, cultural, and environmental interaction between US businesses, citizens, politicians, and their Mexican counterparts. Thus, many commentators anticipated that NAFTA's effects would be most pronounced in these regions of intensified interaction. As Heidi Hall discussed in the previous chapter, the California-Baja California region is currently the area of most energetic interaction along the US-Mexican border, boasting the most rapid economic growth and the highest population increases. However, because of the impressive growth and the lack of infrastructure to support the region's development, environmental degradation is also accelerating, threatening the long-term sustainability of the region.
How has NAFTA affected this region? First, it has furthered the growth of the business communities of San Diego and Tijuana. In recent years the engine of growth in San Diego has been the increased trade flows sparked by the agreement implemented in 1994. According to the California Trade and Commerce Agency, NAFTA has produced a 20.4 percent increase in California's exports to Mexico and a 36.6 percent jump in the state's exports to Canada in the first quarter of 1996. The expansion of sales to Mexico has primarily benefited producers of electronic components, computers, and telecommunications equipment because many Mexican companies in the Baja region have initiated modernization programs to compete and grow in the increasingly competitive North American free trade zone. Hence, development of the California-Baja California economy is being furthered through mutual dependence and cooperation.
Second, NAFTA has also promoted the economic development of Tijuana. A report assessing the impact of maquiladoras on the region concludes that, "[t]ijuana may well be the world's most rapidly burgeoning large city." While Tijuana had already boasted the largest maquiladora industry, NAFTA has made it more attractive to foreign companies in the US and Asia. Asian companies have contributed to the establishment of seven hundred maquiladora plants in the Tijuana region, propelling it to the position of the world's largest producer of televisions. The majority of businesses attracted to the region are involved in electronics, chemical, and furniture industries, with electronics firms accounting for 65 percent of all maquiladoras and employing 80 percent of all assembly plant workers. This is important, as I will discuss later, because these premier growth industries in Tijuana degrade the regional environment by generating significant pollution.
Populations have responded to the economic expansion and have migrated to the border region. Between 1990 and 1995 San Diego and the Imperial Valley's population grew an average of 1.31 percent and 5.09 percent respectively per year and Tijuana and Mexicali added 6.75 percent and 2.94 percent each. This is having an important impact on the environment of the region because of the lack of infrastructure to respond to the increased demand for potable water and sewage disposal.
While policy makers encourage rapid development they have neglected to ensure the long term environmental sustainability of the region; as businesses and populations expand they are threatening to overwhelm the ecological limits of this fragile ecosystem. This chapter will examine many of the important environmental challenges that the San Diego-Tijuana corridor is facing as a result of the increasing growth produced by NAFTA. It will first address the problems associated with water in the region, including the diminishing quality of water along the border and the increasing water shortage. Second, it will analyze the causes and implications of soil pollution. And finally, it will confront the increasing problem of air pollution in the border region. Through a discussion of each of these environmental challenges facing both the United States and Mexico this chapter attempts to illustrate the deepening environmental interdependency that constrains the two countries and demonstrates the need for cross border cooperation. The chapter will attempt to show that any long-term solutions to the environmental challenges require that policy makers address pollution generated from both sides of the border. Furthermore, it will emphasize not only the interdependency of San Diego and Tijuana, but also the interconnectedness of each environmental problem; addressing some important sources responsible for creating certain environmental problems, such as water pollution, while neglecting others, such as soil and air pollution, will fail to provide for the long-term sustainability of the border region.
Nevertheless, environmental monitoring and disease incidence data continue to point out that public and environmental health along the border - the result of uncontrolled air and water pollution and lack of disease vector control - is rapidly deteriorating and seriously affecting the health and future economic vitality of the region.- The Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association
Despite the rapid movement of industry and people to the California-Baja California region, border cities such as San Diego and Tijuana have not satisfied this growth with sufficient infrastructure to effectively dispose of the wastes that businesses and populations generate. While the problem of declining water quality is not new to the region, the industrial growth opportunities and over-development sparked by NAFTA have accelerated the degradation beyond sustainable levels.
When examining the water pollution problem of the border region, it is important to analyze the unique contribution of each side while also remembering that the pollutants carried by rivers, streams, and the ocean are not confined within national boundaries; thus, regardless of the polluter, communities in both the United States and Mexico are often impacted. San Diego, for instance, while not degrading water quality as much as Tijuana, boosts water pollution levels at the border. According to the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, the city of San Diego has under-reported sewage spills and contaminated the Pacific Ocean with approximately 20,000 tons of sewage solids since 1989. In February, 1992, an outfall pipe at Point Loma broke and discharged an unprecedented amount of sewage, escalating bacteria levels to 1,000 times the legal ceiling. Equally alarming is the fact that planners have not upgraded the plant to effectively treat sewage from the growing cities. The Point Loma plant must treat nearly 180 million gallons of sewage daily from San Diego and other cities, such as Tijuana, yet a state sanitary engineer claims that the plant is only operating at 17 percent efficiency, improperly re-disposing much of the solid waste into the sewer system.
While San Diego does contribute to water pollution problems, Tijuana is the chief polluter in the region, improperly dumping 13 million gallons of waste into the Tijuana River every day. The NAFTA led growth of the maquiladora sector has contributed to overwhelming Tijuana's capacity to properly dispose of waste and, thus, directly adds to pollution levels. Tijuana's lack of infrastructure does not allow many maquiladoras to safely dispose of production byproducts. Instead, many maquiladoras dispose of their waste by storing it unsafely, dumping it into landfills, or releasing it into a wastewater collection system.
Because the maquiladoras in the region produce electronics, manufacturing products, transportation equipment, oil-based products, plastic materials, and metal products, there is a significant amount of harmful byproducts from industry in Tijuana. The waste discharged from industry often includes heavy metals, such as arsenic and lead, and other toxic materials, including cyanide. A sampling of the Tijuana water located close to industry in 1990-91 by the National Toxics Campaign Fund - Citizens' Environmental Laboratory found "pollution by petroleum, naphthalene, total xylene, chromium, copper" and other contaminants in areas nearby 75 percent of the maquiladora areas tested. Further study concluded that the production procedure for electronics components, the leading maquiladora industry in Tijuana, depends highly on industrial solvents, a primary detractor from Tijuana's water quality.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, maquiladoras dispose of their waste by improperly storing it, dumping it into landfills, or releasing it into a wastewater collection system. While utilizing wastewater collection systems seems appropriate, because of the uniquely metallic and toxic composition of maquiladora waste, such disposal techniques magnify the region's pollution problems. The electronics industry and manufacturers of metals dispose of their waste in the municipal sewage system, mixing their toxins with residential wastes. Because industry overwhelms the sewage treatment systems with its wastes, in addition to Tijuana not having any pretreatment program for industrial toxins, the waste is not sufficiently treated and is dumped with nearly the original toxicity levels onto beaches south of Tijuana.
In addition to pollution from industry, urban and rural population centers lack adequate sewage disposal systems and contribute to much of the 13 million gallons of sewage added to the Tijuana River each day. According to a joint research program conducted by San Diego State University and Universidad Autynoma de Baja California, only 50.8 percent of the homes in Tijuana have waste water disposal, while practically all of San Diego's homes are linked to "potable water delivery systems". Often, colonias in the outlying areas of Tijuana improperly dispose of sewage, allowing it to flow through Tijuana's landscape of gullies and canyons into the Tijuana River. Moreover, as Tijuana develops, many low-income families move to the periphery of Tijuana and lack access to sewage treatment facilities, escalating water pollution levels in Tijuana and, consequently, the Southern California coast.
The waste pollution comprises several concerns for policy makers on each side of the border. Waste from Tijuana in particular harms poor neighborhoods in Tijuana and contaminates American and Mexican beaches once it flows to the mouth of the Tijuana River. First, water pollution from industry and the increasing population pressures on a strained waste treatment infrastructure exacerbate health problems in the region. The Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association concluded that "the border area is a virtual cesspool and breeding ground for infectious disease." Many communities in and around the San Diego-Tijuana border depend on the polluted Tijuana River for cooking, drinking, and recreation, which exposes many border residents to disease.
In the last several years, border cities such as Tijuana have reported rising infant mortality rates and climbing gastrointestinal disease cases. Waste pollution in the Tijuana River increases incidence of diseases such as hepatitis A, tuberculosis, and dysentery. Hepatitis A is a virus which produces health problems often characterized by "weakness, malaise, aches, elevated transaminases, and sometimes jaundice." Moreover, a study by Judith Graff, et. al. of the Department of Virology and Epidemiology of Virus Diseases at the University of Tubingen, Germany, examined the health effects of the hepatitis A virus, which they found is often transmitted through sewage sludge, and concluded that it has a mortality rate of 1-2 percent in both adolescents and adults. Also compelling were their findings that hepatitis A can be active in both untreated and, sometimes, in treated sewage. This further supports the contention that escalating sewage levels in border waters, as a result of the expanding industry and populations from NAFTA, is posing a growing health risk to communities in Tijuana, San Diego, and elsewhere. Though not as serious as the potential impacts of hepatitis A, the effects of the gastrointestinal diseases often include "vomiting, stomach aches, and fever."
While children from San Diego's neighborhoods do not swim in the hazardous waste laden Tijuana River and locals do not have direct access to the aguas negras, San Diego's environmental fate is linked to the polluting practices of Tijuana. The escalation of pollution levels threatens to undermine the health of US beaches and damages Southern California's tourism industry. For example, sewage dumped into the Tijuana river destroys the marine environment of both San Diego and the Baja Peninsula. Sewage from maquiladoras and households flows from Tijuana and empties into the Pacific at Imperial Beach. Ted Pauw, draft author of a case study on the Tijuana River, reports on the geography of the Tijuana River:
The river is part of a 1,735 square mile watershed. The watershed rises from the Pacific Ocean to a level of 5,500 feet above sea level; it includes farms, pine forests, and coastal shrubs. About 73 percent of the watershed is in Mexico and 27 percent is in California . . . runoff from the Tijuana River flows northward into the Pacific Ocean.
Understanding the region's unique geography is important because it shows that the river flow dynamics of the Tijuana River cause waste pollution from Tijuana to pollute the US beaches to the north.
Further illustrating the environmental interdependency of San Diego and Tijuana, California Governor Pete Wilson declared a state of emergency in 1993 as a result of the millions of gallons of raw sewage that Mexico was dumping in the Tijuana river each day washing up on California beaches. Many have since concluded that, because pollution levels have not declined to acceptable levels, the coastline from Imperial Beach down to Rosarito Beach is too contaminated for human recreation. A typical sign on the Southern California beaches warns, "Contaminated with Sewage. Keep Out. Avoid All Contact."
Nevertheless, joggers who run on the polluted beaches and swimmers and surfers continue to frequent the beaches of San Diego, exposing themselves to the health impacts that plague the communities of Tijuana. The Surfrider Foundation conducted a study of San Diego surfers and revealed that ear infections, hepatitis, giardia, and other health problems are increasing as a result of the increasing toxicity of the beaches.
Not only does pollution from Tijuana imperil the health of San Diego's ocean visitors, it also threatens San Diego's tourism industry. San Diego and Tijuana attract the majority of their visitors from the southwest United States, offering them a relatively inexpensive trip to the coast. In 1993 San Diego generated nearly $3.5 billion from hosting visitors, 6 percent of its gross regional product. Because San Diego is so dependent on tourist dollars, it cannot afford to have one of its primary attractions, beaches, closed or publicly criticized for the significant pollution levels. The 1993 health quarantine of Imperial Beach lasted 146 days, through the summer months, causing devastating losses to the tourism industry. In addition to closures at Imperial Beach, numerous San Diego County beaches were closed to the public 727 times, discouraging tourists from ever returning to these polluted areas in the future. Instead of vacationing at San Diego's beaches, tourists can easily switch to cleaner spots in Monterey, Newport, Malibu, or other safer areas along the California coastline. Estimates indicate that Imperial Beach has lost an average of $100 million annually because of quarantines banning their recreational use and also because of the lost credibility that the region can provide a serene, healthy, and enjoyable vacation.
This threat to San Diego's tourism industry illustrates the dependence that San Diego has on the environmental sustainability of Tijuana in two respects. First, environmental pollution from Tijuana contaminates San Diego and exacerbates health problems. Second, Tijuana's pollution impairs the San Diego area economically. Consequently, maximizing the potential economic gains from NAFTA requires an understanding that the environmental and economic fate of San Diego is inextricably linked to the actions of, and its cooperation with, Tijuana.
Water contamination of the Tijuana River also affects the agricultural production on each side of the border. Farmers near the Tijuana River and the New River, which runs from Mexicali Valley into the Imperial Valley about 100 miles east of San Diego, use the untreated waste to irrigate their crops. For example, before waste reaches an open conveyance canal in the Tijuana River, local farmers siphon the waste water to irrigate their fields. The Tijuana, New, and Colorado rivers contribute to irrigating almost 0.8 billion hectares of farmland in both the US and Mexico. Fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries, once irrigated with toxic river water, threaten the health of American and Mexican consumers. In addition to farmers siphoning water from the polluted rivers for their agriculture, the geographical path of the Tijuana River contaminates Tijuana's river valley farmland. Sewage from the expanding maquiladora industry and the growing rural population flows down canyons and into the river valley, eliminating the potential to generate healthy crops.
In addition to agricultural loss, sewage pollution threatens the valuable biodiversity of the San Diego-Tijuana corridor. There are several levels at which sewage contamination damages the biological food chain of the rivers and the coastal waters:
This is important, particularly to the San Diego ecosystem, because it is home to more endangered species than any other county in the United States; at least 24 plant and animal species that are either proposed for, or are already on the list of endangered species, have habitat in San Diego. Because not all of them live in or near the Tijuana River or the coast, it is important to remember the importance of biodiversity in San Diego as I discuss land and air pollution later.
In addition, sewage dumped into the surface waters of Tijuana threatens the Tijuana River Estuary. This estuary is important because it represents 20 percent of Southern California's wetlands and is home to several endangered species, in addition to 29 fish species and 298 varieties of birds. The sewage threatens the area's valuable diversity because it destructively alters the hydrology of the salt water marsh, disturbing the balanced ecosystem.
The water quality challenges further demonstrate that San Diego and Tijuana are interdependent both environmentally and economically; sewage originating in Tijuana's communities contaminates San Diego's pristine beaches and other aquatic environments. Hence, solutions to San Diego's environmental challenges, such as water pollution, because they are transnational, cannot simply involve a domestic focus. Rather, similar to Gerardo Botello's conclusion (Chapter 10) about the strategies necessary to solve water pollution problems on the Texas-Mexico border, inter-regional cooperation is critical in order to minimize the environmental impact of the San Diego-Tijuana region's booming growth, particularly as NAFTA accelerates regional development and integration. As NAFTA fosters economic growth, more migrants will flood San Diego and Tijuana, raising the number of households not connected to a municipal sewage system and also adding to the number of households that overwhelm the current sewage treatment infrastructure.
Despite the worsening of water pollution along the border, the United States and Mexico have not adequately addressed the environmental needs of the border, especially when considering the current economic and population boom that globalization in general and NAFTA in particular are producing in the San Diego-Tijuana corridor. Often cited as the primary obstacle to healthy rivers and drinking water, San Diego, and more significantly, Tijuana, lack sufficient infrastructure to cope with the rapid development. The amount of sewage dumped into the wastewater treatment systems is overwhelming the capacity of those systems to treat waste. Furthermore, as I explained above, maquiladoras often improperly dispose of the waste into the Tijuana sewer system, which is not designed to handle industrial toxins.
In addition to lacking the infrastructure to treat most of the waste generated in Tijuana, directly related to the problem of maquiladoras improperly disposing of their waste materials is the lack of enforcement of environmental regulations in the area. For example, instead of penalizing maquiladoras that improperly dump their waste in rivers and other sensitive areas, the Mexican government has sought to work out agreements under which industry is supposed to voluntarily comply with Mexican dumping laws. Despite Mexico's advanced environmental laws, relying on industry compliance, rather than strict enforcement, has created an environment in which domestic and foreign industries do not respect Mexican laws. For instance, a study by the US General Accounting Office found that among the over 100 US-owned maquiladoras, almost none of them even completed the environmental prerequisites for operating in Tijuana and the rest of Mexico; many of the companies had not submitted the environmental impact assessments required to obtain an operating permit for Mexico and several were issued licenses before receiving permits for proper water discharge and hazardous waste management. Tijuana has proven that it is more concerned with attracting multinational corporations to improve economic growth than providing a healthy environment in which its citizens work and live, and this is also having a significant impact on Southern California's environmental and economic welfare. This attitude supporting unmitigated economic growth precludes long-term sustainable development by creating a diseased environment in which populations, industry, the tourism sector, and biodiversity suffer.
Furthermore, inadequate funding for environmental programs and the failure to sufficiently embolden institutions on each side of the border has derailed many prospects for increasing the water quality of the region. When formulating the NAFTA side agreements, the United States, Mexico, and Canada established the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission (BECC) and the North American Development Bank (NADBank) in order to attract funding from the federal, state and local governments, as well as the private sector, to fund environmental programs. The BECC is designed to work with border communities to address failing infrastructure and problems that demand cleanup efforts. Upon satisfying environmental criteria, the BECC seeks funding from financial institutions, primarily the NADBank, and upon obtaining financing, assists with the implementation of the projects.
However, these organizations have failed to promptly address the disturbing environmental contamination that is devastating border health and the ecosystem. First, in the immediate term these organizations may not receive sufficient funding. For example, these institutions are limited by Mexico's economic hardships and its lack of commitment to improving the San Diego-Tijuana border environment. Second, many argue that the structure of the NADBank loans make them unfeasible for many essential border projects. For example, many needy communities may not have the ability to repay NADBank loans and workers probably won't be able to afford the high user fees for NADBank services. Because of the lack of available funds, NADBank is even more likely now to restrict its projects to those that can be paid back. Because financial disbursements are based upon a criteria of relative opportunity costs, obtaining funding will prove unfeasible for many of Tijuana's needy communities and they will continue to live in squalor.
More specific to the San Diego-Tijuana region, some progress is being made to reduce water pollution, but the current efforts are inadequate. The United States and Mexico have worked through the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) to share in the funding of an International Wastewater Treatment Plant. The plant will be constructed in San Diego and is designed to handle 25 million gallons per day of sewage with the potential to treat 100 million gallons per day of both San Diego's and Tijuana's waste. In addition to a treatment plant, the project calls for construction of an ocean outfall which will dispose of treated waste into the Pacific Ocean. The estimated $400 million in costs will be shared by the US Federal Government, the State of California, the City of San Diego, and the Mexican Government; the US Government is expected to pay $208 million, while California, San Diego, and the Mexico Government each pay $31.6 million, $75.2 million, and $85.2 million respectively.
However, there are several reasons why this effort is incapable of fundamentally addressing the sewage problem outlined above, including:
While awareness of the these border water problems is increasing and governments are beginning to address the problem, further cooperation is needed to solve the fundamental pollution problems exacerbated by the NAFTA inspired economic boom in the San Diego-Tijuana region that contribute to deaths of children and adults, species decline, and economic losses.
Mexico and the United States are on a collision course with conflict over groundwater as population and competition for water resources increase.- Albert E. Utton
Intimately connected to the problem of water quality, the second environmental problem that the San Diego-Tijuana region must confront as a result of the economic expansion that NAFTA is producing is the declining availability of useable water. A lasting supply of clean water is essential in order to both satisfy the growing needs of industry and to provide for the welfare of the border populations. This section will first analyze the current shortage of water along the border, including a discussion of the increasing needs of San Diego and Tijuana for increased water supplies. Then, it will discuss some of the important repercussions of the water shortage, including the constraint that it places on further economic development and the environmental consequences of the lack of water conservation efforts in the region.
The quantity of water available to San Diego, and more importantly, Tijuana and the Mexicali Valley, is increasingly constrained. The San Diego-Tijuana corridor is an arid region with little surface water and insufficient groundwater deposits. Consequently, San Diego taps the Colorado River and sources in northern California for 95 percent of its water supply. Further, it has reached its limit in terms of the amount of water it can extract from these sources.
Tijuana, which also draws from the Colorado River, is already suffering from water shortages; at least 15 percent of Tijuana's households do not receive water from Tijuana's delivery system. Because of the overwhelming growth in the maquiladora industry and the resulting population growth that NAFTA has augmented through the expansion of the maquiladora industry, research conducted at the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California estimates that Tijuana will experience a water deficit by this year.
Furthermore, the declining water quality is detrimentally affecting the quantity of water available to populations and agriculture. For example, the increasing levels of industrial pollution and the discharge of heavy metals and other contaminants makes reclamation increasingly difficult and costly. Additionally, because good quality water is not widely available, over 40 percent live without safe drinking water.
An important effect that this water shortage will have is that it will act as a constraint on economic development for the San Diego-Tijuana region. Industry depends heavily on water and business cannot grow without the availability of water to fulfill its needs. Water supply is also an important consideration for businesses because their employees depend on an accessible water supply. For example, in Tijuana the electronics manufacturer Samsung uses nearly one million gallons of water per day, 5 percent of Tijuana's total water budget. This level of consumption will severely limit Tijuana's ability to attract other electronics firms and other industries because little water remains to provide for the potential increased demand. Moreover, the increasing demand from electronics firms fuels an important trend in Tijuana, which has seen water consumption from its growing maquiladora industry rise from 106,350 gallons per day in 1994 to approximately 4.1 million gallons per day in 1997. Future economic growth in the region depends on the expansion of each city's supply of water so that they can satisfy the demands of both industry and populations.
Another important impact that San Diego in particular, and Tijuana as well, produce through their enormous consumption of water is the environmental destruction of the Imperial and Mexicali valleys. These valleys are located just to the west of the Colorado River in the US and Mexico (See Figure 1) and depend on water from the Colorado River to survive. Of the economic impacts from water scarcity that affect California's Imperial Valley, the most striking is that the high salinity of the water destroys up to $311 million in crops and water handling facilities annually. As the water comes through Wyoming and down to California it passes through over thirty hydroelectric plants and is used and reused by farmers, causing dramatic increases in salinity by the time the depleted river crosses into Mexico. This increased salinity threatens the Mexicali region with agricultural collapse and contributes to a shortage of drinking water for Mexicans. Tom Barry, the senior analyst at the Inter-hemispheric Education Research Center, warns:
The economic boom of the borderlands does not yet show signs of decline, but the region does seem to be reaching the limits of development, as evidenced by available water resources and the decreasing quality of what little water there is. If current trends continue, the salinity of the Colorado River will reach 1,150 ppm by the year 2010, spelling the death of agriculture in the Mexicali and perhaps even in the Imperial Valley. . . . not only will crops face ruin, but saline water may also threaten the maquila industry which depends on good-quality water.
This draws attention to further interconnections that plague decision makers. San Diego and Tijuana depend on enhanced water supplies to satisfy the growth in their industrial sectors. However, this increased demand threatens the nearby Imperial and Mexicali valleys with agricultural and, as a result, economic ruin. Moreover, the increased demand for water in San Diego and Tijuana increases salinity levels in the region's water supply and, thus, endangers each city's potential for development because of their dependence on increased access to fresh water for future growth. Hence, San Diego and Tijuana cannot continue to pursue unmitigated growth; policy makers must become aware of the economic and environmental consequences of draining the Colorado river to fuel their economic gains.
Finally, the water shortage crisis is also connected to the regional hazardous waste dumping problem. First, water shortage presents health risks to border populations as households seek polluted water to satisfy their cooking and consumption needs. As I discussed above, the aguas negras contribute to the spread of infectious disease and death in border communities. Also, the expanding border communities are increasingly seeking containers for water. They are often so desperate, or are unaware of the dangers, that they will use discarded hazardous waste containers that they find at dump sites for water collection.
The challenges of water scarcity further illustrate the interdependence that San Diego and Tijuana share. Tijuana and the Mexicali Valley rely on the US to monitor its own consumption of water because without limits to increased water use, the Southwestern United States will consume the lions' share of Colorado River water, prompting the economic stagnation of Tijuana and the agricultural collapse of Mexicali. This has important implications for San Diego as well. For example, according to new trade statistics cited above, growth in demand for electronics, computers, and telecommunications equipment in Tijuana is fueling record growth in San Diego. If Tijuana's economic growth is threatened because of the inability of US farmers and San Diego's population and industry to conserve water, it would have important repercussions for growth opportunities in San Diego. Additionally, as Tom Barry admonished, San Diego and Tijuana's increased demand for water risks destroying the agriculture of Mexicali and the Imperial Valley, a potentially devastating blow to the US agriculture industry. Consequently, any policy that attempts to address the fundamental flaw in the current water use framework, the lack of water conservation, must address overconsumption in both San Diego and Tijuana, as each city's overuse of water imperils the other.
Figure 1
The San Diego-Tijuana Border Area
International commerce and investment involve more than the cross-border flow of materials and money. Increasingly poisons also flow back and forth across borders.- Tom Barry
As the San Diego-Tijuana region makes further economic gains and increases productivity as a result of further trade links created by NAFTA, the already serious problem of industry in the US and Mexico improperly dumping waste byproducts in landfills and in various parts of the fragile arid ecosystem will become worse. Companies in San Diego and Tijuana save large amounts of capital by illegally disposing of waste, and the lack of monitoring in Mexico makes it a relatively risk-free operation.
While maquiladoras from Tijuana make significant contributions to the amount of waste illegally dumped, companies from the San Diego area are responsible for adding to the transnational border region's problems. Southern California firms smuggle tens of thousands of gallons of hazardous waste to Mexico every month, according to Los Angeles deputy district attorney William Carter, who specializes in environmental crimes.
The primary reason why US companies smuggle waste into Mexico to illegally dump is to minimize their waste disposal costs. In the United States, companies must pay disposal costs of US$ 300 to US$ 1000 per barrel to properly dispose of hazardous waste. Smuggling the waste into Mexico, in contrast, can save money with little risk of punishment. As globalization erodes divisions between nation-states and NAFTA further integrates the economies of North America, US companies are increasingly looking for ways to cut costs to remain competitive with firms in Mexico and save money by illegally disposing of waste in Mexico.
Though there are cases of it, industry in Tijuana does not have to smuggle its waste across the border to cheaply dispose of it. A 1983 agreement signed between the US and Mexico demands that maquiladoras either return the wastes that they generate to their country of origin or ensure that they are recycled in Mexico. However, the rapidly expanding electronics, chemical, and furniture industries in Tijuana generate large amounts of toxic waste and they illegally dispose of at least 40 percent of those in rivers, sewers, and land sites. The waste that the maquiladoras in Tijuana generate and dispose of improperly dwarfs the illegal smuggling of wastes from California, made possible by the lax environmental regulations and monitoring. A common scenario for improper dumping involved a maquiladora refusing to dispose of the wastes at an authorized disposal site or processing facility and taking the waste in barrels to illegally dump in the desert.
The combined effect of waste smuggled to Mexico from California and from waste generated in Tijuana is substantial. The San Diego-Tijuana corridor is an important contributor to the more than 9,000 hazardous waste sites, at least 1,400 of them uncontrolled, in the US-Mexico borderlands. As the chapter by Gerardo Botello indicates, many of these sites are also concentrated in the desert region of the Texas-Mexico border. In addition to the Texas-Mexico region, the California-Baja California region is experiencing significant growth in illegal dumping; according to Tijuana's chief of sanitation, "[t]he creation of clandestine dumps is uncontrollable, since one or more new ones appear every day."
While companies from California and Tijuana often dispose of their waste in Mexico, the toxins devastate the ecology of both California and Mexico. For example, the areas share common trans-border aquifers so contaminants that are dumped near Tijuana or other sites in northern Mexico seep into the groundwater of Southern California and Southwestern US border communities. Furthermore, most border communities use so much of the water in their aquifers that they magnify the problem of toxicity in their water supply. Not only do they consume toxic chemicals from normal use of the aquifer, but because most border communities deplete their aquifer faster than the aquifer can recharge its water supply, overall water volume in the aquifer declines and the harmful concentrations of toxins in their groundwater increases. The health and environmental consequences are similar to the problems that I outlined in the section on sewage pollution. Populations, particularly in the Imperial Valley and Mexicali Valley use groundwater for cooking, drinking, and bathing. As a result, those border communities using water contaminated by hazardous waste will likely continue to see the negative health implications increase.
There are several impediments to effectively resolving the smuggling of waste into Mexico and illegal dumping of toxins inside of Mexico. Most importantly, there is no substantial enforcement or monitoring program implemented that can realistically curtail the flow of waste from California into Mexico. So far, the efforts have been limited, and have had minimal success. For example, the California Highway Patrol employs a squad of "green cops" who try to prevent California industry from smuggling waste. Also, the only EPA office which handles issues of the western US-Mexico border area is located in San Francisco, employing only one person to track the hazardous wastes that industry and maquiladoras dispose of. Additionally, while the US Department of Commerce monitors exports and imports, no agency has created an effective system for monitoring the flow of hazardous wastes. The US and Mexico have cooperated to begin tracking the international flow of hazardous waste though limitations in the computerized system have precluded any meaningful gains. While these efforts do produce some results, they are insignificant in trying to prevent hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous materials that US companies smuggle across the border every year.
Even if the US effectively curtails the smuggling of wastes into Mexico, American and Mexican border populations would continue to suffer from Tijuana's maquiladoras dumping hazardous waste along the border. For many maquiladoras in Mexico, the reason that they illegally dump their hazardous waste in the desert is the same reason that they also dispose of waste in the rivers and sewers. The lack of infrastructure to treat, recycle, or safely dispose of the waste generated is an important factor in prompting companies to improperly dispose of waste. For example, only a few commercial toxic waste dumps exist in Mexico and there is only one disposal facility in the country. Without affordable and close access to a disposal site, maquiladoras will continue to illegally dump hazardous waste. Also, as discussed above, the lack of strictly enforced regulations make illegal dumping more attractive. Thus, as NAFTA continues to fuel the economic development of San Diego and Tijuana, the two cities must cooperate to provide for adequate infrastructure and the effective enforcement of laws so that the economic gains sparked by the trade pact are sustainable. If these problems are not addressed cooperatively, industry from San Diego and Tijuana will continue to endanger the health of the entire border region, contaminating the groundwater that nourishes border populations and creating wastelands of valueless property and an economic burden for border cleanup that San Diego County, the US Federal Government, and the Mexico regime will inevitably bear. Thus, again we see that because of regional interdependence, unilateral action cannot fundamentally resolve the problem; the Imperial Valley cannot have safe drinking water if policy makers in the US and Mexico ignore the pollution from Tijuana's maquiladoras and the populations of the Mexicali Valley will continue to live near toxic waste until transnational institutions enforce dumping laws on US companies as well.
Many border towns have become large cities with freeways and skyscrapers, but the gritty dust of the border is still part of the picture. In fact, the skies over the borderlands are browner and dustier than ever. But what one sees, breathes, and smells in the air is not all dust. The winds now also carry alarming quantities of such pollutants as ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and lead as well as particulate matter. Like the black waters of the border region, the brown pallor of these southwestern skies has become a major health hazard.- Tom Barry
Air pollution is another significant problem that I will discuss in the context of increasing problems associated with the economic development furthered by NAFTA. Air pollution and its effects do not respect national borders, further illustrating that because San Diego and Tijuana share an ecosystem, they are increasingly interdependent. Air pollution produced in San Diego and Tijuana contaminates the environmental health of both sides of the border. I will begin with a description of the unique geography of the region. Then, I will discuss the problems and consequences of vehicular and industrial pollution.
Because San Diego and Tijuana share an air basin, each area is affected by air pollution generated on both sides of the border. Nick Johnstone, research officer at the Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge, describes the geographical limits of the airshed:
. . . Tijuana-San Diego share a common airshed bisected by the international border and bounded by the ocean to the west, the Santa Ana mountains to the north, the Laguna mountains to the east and the Sierra Juarez to the south. There is a daily exchange of air as winds blow from the west to east in the afternoon and evening when air pressure is higher over the ocean and southeast to northwest overnight when the land surface begins to cool. The circular flow covers an area of 120 kilometers from north to south and 70 kilometers from west to east, but is more pronounced in the summer months.
In consequence of the diffusion of air flow in the basin, winds distribute pollution from each city throughout the region. Furthermore, several days throughout each year the regional air flow shifts and brings pollution from the Los Angeles basin down to San Diego and Tijuana, causing San Diego to fail meeting minimum federal air quality standards for those days. In addition to air flow problems, temperature inversions occur during the winter, trapping air pollution at low altitudes and furthering the impacts of air contamination.
The San Diego area is primarily responsible for motor vehicle pollution and the emission of industrial pollutants. The most significant source of air pollution along the border is vehicular traffic. By September, 1995 San Diego County had accumulated 1,894,567 vehicles and Imperial County reached 112,523. The Mexican side of the border often generates pollution from leaded fuel used in its older vehicles and mass-transportation fleet. Tijuana's older vehicles number 241,581 while Mexicali Valley adds 228,297. Though Tijuana has significantly fewer vehicles, its automobiles and trucks contribute significantly to San Diego's pollution problem. San Diego County Supervisor Brian Bilbray contends that vehicles from Mexico generate 13 percent of the county's vehicle pollution, while they number only 1 percent of the vehicles in San Diego.
The international flow of traffic contributes to most of the vehicular pollution of the San Diego-Tijuana border. First, NAFTA will continue to cause a substantial increase in such air pollution because, by removing barriers to the free movement of goods between the US and Mexico, international trucking traffic, often from the expanding heavy diesel trucking industry, and other international vehicular traffic will increase. According to data from the US Customs Service, truck crossings at the San Diego border have increased an average of 9 percent every year from 1990 through 1995 and automobile crossings are up nearly 2 percent. Second, in addition to traffic in the city, vehicles idling at the border also are detrimental to regional air quality. As Heidi Hall, chapter 7, discusses in detail, because of the US Customs Service's intense drug interdiction efforts and immigration officials' slow inspections at the border, vehicles idle in long lines, creating more pollution for the region than all of the vehicles on highways.
San Diego traffic and Tijuana's aged vehicle fleet impact the health of the entire region. Vehicle fuel combustion is responsible for emissions of particulate material that destroy air quality and environmental health. Vehicles generate a harmful mix of carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, and hydrocarbons. These airborne pollutants often remain close to the earth's surface and contaminate the ecosystem. For example, a study by the Office of Health and Environmental Research within the US Department of Energy, in cooperation with a Harvard research group, offers compelling evidence that these pollutants contribute to death in humans. The researchers conclude that air pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels kills 100,000 people per year in the United States alone. The researchers also argue that the carbon monoxide and other particulate material emitted from automobiles contribute to heart and lung disease and cancer.
Industrial air pollution is also an important source of environmental degradation in the region. One important example is the flight of California's furniture industry to Tijuana. As regulations were implemented preventing the use of solvent-based paints and also mandating that firms install spray chambers to prevent fumes from escaping, more than forty firms from Southern California fled to Tijuana and the rest of Baja California. Fine Goods Furniture (now Muebles Fino Buenos) is an example of a Southern California furniture company that relocated in Tijuana, where it could use solvent based paints and not worry about shielding local communities from the fumes. Though the firm met Tijuana's environmental standards, local communities began suffering from dizziness, sore throats, nausea and locals complained of smelling solvents throughout the day. One furniture factory owner explained the move from the US to Tijuana, "I can find lots of Mexican workers in the United States. What I can't find here in Tijuana is the government looking over my shoulder." Moreover, the furniture industry is part of the larger trend towards expanding the Tijuana industrial economy. As NAFTA prompts firms to continue to flood the region plants using exotic gases, acids, asbestos, and other chemicals increases. These chemical pollutants threaten local communities as well as populations in nearby San Diego.
Achieving sustainable development is becoming the most important challenge for industrialized and underdeveloped nations alike. Considering the increasing fragility of trans-border ecosystems and the toll that unregulated economic growth takes on public health and welfare, the environmental and social costs of development can no longer be ignored.- Tom Barry
As illustrated in this chapter, there are significant environmental problems that the US and Mexico share and must cooperatively address. These challenges include water quality and supply problems, soil pollution from the expanding regional industry, and air contamination from sources such as motor vehicles and industrial factories. Though San Diego and Tijuana are separated by political boundaries, pollution from both sides of the border impacts the entire region. As a result, any effort to measurably improve the environmental quality of San Diego must also include addressing the pollution originating in Tijuana (and vice versa), indicating the deep environmental interdependence that the two cities share.
In addition to San Diego and Tijuana being interconnected, the environmental challenges facing the region are interwoven as well. For example, not only does overuse threaten sustainable water supplies, but the unmitigated pollution of surface and ground waters from San Diego's industry and Tijuana's maquiladoras also risks destroying fresh water sources. Additionally, while trans-border institutions may attempt to address border health problems and save many of San Diego's endangered species by reducing water pollution, neglecting the harmful air contamination from automobiles and industry would allow for further health impairments and species extinctions. Thus, not only must effective policies acknowledge the interconnectedness of both sides of the border, they must also respond to the connections that each environmental problem shares.
There are important obstacles that the US and Mexico must overcome in order to resolve these environmental harms. One impediment to effective environmental policy is the economic asymmetry across the San Diego-Tijuana border. Though attitudes are changing, Mexican policy makers have felt that rigorous environmental protection has been a luxury that the US, as a wealthy economy, can afford but that Mexico has not been able to. In response, the US has been somewhat reluctant to absorb the immense costs of cleaning up the border region and constructing facilities to ensure long term environmental health. Unfortunately, because both sides of the border are tied environmentally, if no further effort is made to improve infrastructure, enforce environmental laws, and clean up the border, the environments and economies of San Diego and Tijuana will suffer severely.
Opponents of NAFTA challenged that the agreement neglected a comprehensive development strategy that would address human rights, labor issues and the environmental problems that NAFTA would likely exacerbate, particularly in rapidly expanding border regions like San Diego-Tijuana. Many of their concerns have materialized, and now constitute serious problems, indicated by the burgeoning and polluting maquiladora industry in Tijuana and the lack of infrastructure and environmental protection to foster sustainable economic development. Consequently, the San Diego-Tijuana corridor provides an important test case for strategies that will seek to maximize the growth of the regional economies while mitigating the environmental harms associated with economic advancement. Indeed, because of the many levels of deep and visible interaction and connection, historians may judge the fate of NAFTA on the improvement or decline of border regions such as the San Diego-Tijuana corridor. Eliminating the image of the border as a "virtual cesspool" and facilitating an environment in which the regional economy can sustainably develop will be essential for a favorable final analysis of the North American Free Trade Agreement and a compelling validation of the larger project of globalization.