| Montreal, 22/08/2006 – The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) today hailed the public release of preliminary data on releases of toxic chemicals from over 1,000 industrial facilities in Mexico. This marks the first time the Mexican public has had access to this information, which was collected for 2004 under the new Registro de Emisiones y Transferencia de Contaminantes (RETC—http://app1.semarnat.gob.mx/retc/index.php).
The RETC is a mandatory reporting system known as a pollutant release and transfer register (PRTR). It’s similar to the Toxics Release Inventory in the United States and the National Pollutant Release Inventory in Canada, under which information is reported to the government by law and made publicly available under community “right-to-know” programs.
For years, Canada and the United States have reported their industrial releases and transfers of toxic chemicals without comparable information from Mexico. The CEC’s governing Council—the top environmental officials from Canada, Mexico and the United States—first identified continent-wide PRTR information as a priority in 1997. Since then, the CEC has been an active partner in the development of Mexico’s PRTR.
The CEC has supported visits for Mexican officials to PRTR offices in Canada and the United States, supplied background data for the development of the RETC, sponsored stakeholder discussions and workshops for local industry, and helped develop a manual on release estimation techniques. Moreover, the CEC’s annual Taking Stock report continues to analyze comparable data from industrial facilities across North America.
William V. Kennedy, executive director for the CEC, says “The RETC is a pivotal step for Mexico and a major step forward for North America in filling a key gap in our understanding of the total, continent-wide volume of the release and transfer of certain toxic chemicals. We congratulate Mexico on this important environmental victory.”
The RETC will list the releases and transfers of all federally-regulated industrial plants in the country—including the automotive, cement, chemical, electricity, petroleum, iron and steel, and paper sectors. Other sectors, including electronics and factories in the maquiladoras, are under state or municipal jurisdiction, which are developing their own reporting requirements.
The Mexican RETC will initially track the releases and transfers to air, land and water for 104 chemicals. It is anticipated the information will be used by industries, policy-makers and the public alike to track environmental performance, pinpoint strategies for pollution prevention and improve public health.
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For more information regarding the RETC and PRTRs in North America, please visit
www.cec.org/takingstock
or contact:
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