CEC receives Mexico’s response to Lake Chapala II submission

The submission asserts the Mexico is failing to effectively enforce various provisions of the General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection (Ley General del Equilibrio Ecológico y la Protección al Ambiente—LGEEPA) and the National Water Law (Ley de Aguas Nacionales) and their regulations, which confer water management functions upon the federal executive branch and empower the public to participate in the development and execution of the country's environmental policy and in the enforcement of compliance with environmental laws. It states that civil society participated in several consultations on the problems of the lake basin, the results of which are unknown to the Submitters, and there has been a lack of action by the authority with respect to which the Submitters could exercise their procedural guarantees in the administrative courts. The Submitters refer to the Arcediano dam project on the Santiago River, which they claim is inconsistent with current policy, and assert that the authorities did not give due process to the complaints of Juanacatlán residents with respect to the alleged impacts on human health caused by the pollution of the river. The submission asserts that the National Water Commission (Comisión Nacional del Agua—CNA) does not exercise its powers to decide on the use and distribution of water in the basin and delegates this task to the Basin Council (Consejo de Cuenca) which, according to the Submitters, lacks the respective legal jurisdiction.

Mexico responded to the submission in a 75-page document accompanied by a considerable number of exhibits. In the first section it argues that the submission should be disregarded and states that part of its contents should be deemed confidential. It later argues that criteria for the sustainable use of water were considered in the Arcediano dam project, as the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales—Semarnat) required the Jalisco state government, which undertook the project, to comply with the measures proposed in the environmental impact statement and the ruling thereon. As regards the Santiago River, the Party asserts that it has demonstrated compliance with the criteria for sustainable water use and aquatic ecosystems. It states that it intends to place the Arcediano dam curtain on the Santiago River, because it has already been altered more than the better preserved Verde River. The response states that the project seeks to address the matter of water quantity and quality, given that both rivers are polluted by the untreated municipal and industrial wastewater discharges they receive. With respect to citizen participation, the Party states that it has provided various forums, media and actions from the start of the current administration, for public participation in general and environmental and natural resource matters particularly.

As regards the systematic and ongoing monitoring of water quality, the Party notes that it has the National Water Quality Monitoring Network (Red Nacional de Monitoreo de la Calidad del Agua), which in the case of the Santiago River operates at 12 sites. It reports that the overall basin cleanup program contemplates a complementary cleanup program costing approximately 1.2 billion pesos. The Party further notes that the 2004–2005 fiscal year contemplates 23 investment proposals in the Lerma-Chapala-Santiago basin. It also asserts that under the National Water Program (Programa Nacional Hidráulico) 2001–2006, the restoration and conservation of water quality is included as a specific policy, and the strategy to achieve it requires the "continuous verification of compliance with quality standards, as well as appropriate monitoring of the different receiving bodies." Mexico holds that the CNA is in due compliance with this policy and the legal standard on inspections and oversight.

The Party considers that water distribution does not fall within the concept of "environmental laws" defined in the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), and therefore should not be subject to the submission. However, it included a section asserting that while the Basin Councils form part of the CNA, they are only supporting units and have no authority. They constitute a form of regional organization that may include one or more hydrological basins, and enable the CNA to administer water with user involvement. Its rulings are not compulsory in and of themselves, but rather become compulsory after the authorities adopt them. The response states that the authority continues to ensure public interest and undertakes actions to recover and attain the sustainability of the basin, and for this purpose the federal government entered into a Coordination Agreement with the governors of the five states comprising the basin. The Agreement is based on four central themes: (i) institutional legal framework; (ii) measurement and information systems; (iii) sustainability and administration; and (iv) ecological rehabilitation.

Pursuant to Article 15(1) of the NAAEC, the Secretariat must now analyze the submission in light of the Party's response, to determine whether it will recommend the development of a factual record to the Council.

The CEC was created under the NAAEC to address the three countries' environmental matters from a regional perspective, with special interest in matters arising in the context of trade liberalization. The Council of the CEC-the Commission's governing body—is composed of cabinet—level officials in the environment (or the equivalent thereof) from Canada, Mexico and the United States.