Mexico to publish industrial pollution data

When Francisco Sanchez looks down the street of his neighborhood in Ramos Arizpe, in the Mexican state of Coahuila, he can regularly see white or black smoke spreading over his home from nearby industrial plants.

His industrial neighbors include automotive, steel and iron works, as well as a facility permitted to incinerate recycled and contaminated waste as part of the cement manufacturing process. With the smoke, “at times the smell becomes unbearable, it’s so strong,” says Sanchez. For years, Sanchez and his neighbors, as well as Mexican environmental organizations, have speculated about what toxic chemicals, in what volumes, are spewing from such plants.

They should have answers soon.

For the first time, Mexico is poised to make public how much pollution emanates from its industries. The data are to be posted this summer on a publicly accessible pollutant release and transfer register (PRTR), with annual updates.

Almost everyone agrees the system is not perfect, but it’s a pivotal step for Mexico.

“This is hugely important,” says Tom Natan, research director at the National Environmental Trust in Washington, DC, citing it as a ‘knowledge is power’ concept. “People in Mexico have never had any idea what kind of emissions come from industrial facilities. It’s a real step forward for the whole country for the people to get that information.

“And, it’s a chance for industry in Mexico to counter the conventional wisdom…that US companies move their operations to Mexico in part because they can release more toxic chemicals into the environment there.”

The PRTR, known in Mexico as the Registro de Emisiones y Transferencia de Contaminantes (RETC), is to be published on a searchable government web site, listing industrial plants and their emissions of 104 different toxic chemicals to the air, water and land.

While some air emissions reporting has been mandatory in Mexico since 1998, other emissions reporting has been voluntary, with few industries participating and much of the data acknowledged as being unreliable.

Natan has been working toward a full PRTR in Mexico since 1995–96, when he worked under a United Nations agency to help set up a RETC pilot project in the country.

He said NGOs give a lot of credit to the CEC for its work on the RETC over the years.

“If it weren’t for the CEC, there would be no Mexican inventory (of emissions). They have really been pushing it along and facilitating, helping to give the Mexican NGOs a voice in the whole process.”

CEC involvement began in 1995, with a Council resolution to promote public access to environmental information, followed by a 1997 resolution specifically promoting PRTRs. Many more CEC initiatives followed, including sponsored workshops on gathering and using PRTR data, round table discussions for stakeholders to plan a Mexican PRTR, support for Mexican officials to visit PRTR offices in the United States and Canada, helping develop the legal basis for emissions reporting in Mexico, sponsoring workshops for local industry, helping develop a manual on release estimation techniques, organizing a series of events related to children’s health, and publishing the Taking Stock series, a CEC analysis of PRTR data from the three countries.

The CEC played a very prominent role in getting the RETC enacted, says Carlos Sandoval, president of Mexico’s National Council of Ecological Industries (Conieco) and chair of the CEC’s Joint Public Advisory Committee. “Without the intervention of the CEC, it (the publicly accessible RETC) would have eventually been implemented in Mexico, but it would have come some years later.”

Getting a reading of Mexican pollution will have ramifications across North America, particularly since the prevailing winds blow from southwest to northeast, says Natan. “Persistent bioacumulative toxics travel long distances. Some of the fallout even in Canada could be originating in Mexico.”

Marisa Jacott, coordinator of Greenpeace Mexico’s Toxics Campaign, says the information can’t come soon enough. Mexican NGOs, she says, are concerned there might be further delays in making the RETC public. She says, without an “official norm” (Norma Oficial Mexicana—NOM) in place providing regulations for the program, the legislation could be repealed relatively easily.

Maricruz Rodriguez, director of Industrial Regulation and the RETC for Semarnat, says they are processing more than 10,000 forms from industrial companies and are working towards an expected publication date in late June. And while she acknowledges that the RETC will have greater weight when it is established as a NOM, she says an official norm can only be modified every five years. “For that reason, a NOM that includes an expanded list of substances must be adequately considered—including discussions with industry.”

The NGOs would also like to see around 200 more chemicals, especially persistent bioaccumulative toxics (PBTs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) added to the list of 104 substances for which reporting to the RETC is now required. Currently, Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory (set up in 1993) requires over 300 chemicals to be reported, while nearly 650 chemicals must be reported by industrial facilities to the US Toxics Release Inventory (implemented in 1987). And the NGOs want the Mexican list to be more compatible with the TRI and the NPRI.

According to Jacott, industry has made its position clear on expanding the current list of chemicals—they need more time to learn how to collect and report data before any changes should be made.

Currently, only federally regulated Mexican firms must report emissions to the PRTR: industrial sectors including petroleum and petrochemicals, chemicals, paints, metallurgical (including steel), automotive, paper and cellulose, cement and lime, asbestos, glass, electrical generation, and hazardous waste treatement facilities.

Others, including electronics and other factories in the maquiladoras, are under state or municipal jurisdiction, with different reporting requirements. Currently, 11 of the 31 Mexican states and one federal district have modified their laws to accommodate RETC reporting, while about 25 percent of municipalities have started the process, says Jacott.

While operations under federal jurisdiction represent only about 10 percent of the 350,000 industries in Mexico, they generate 80 percent of the industrial gross domestic product, says Sandoval. He predicts the remaining 90 percent, covered by state and municipal law, will come onstream “little by little.”

According to Sandoval, fears of industry falsifying data are groundless, because of the substantial fines prescribed in the legislation.

Natan agrees false data should not be an issue, as the Mexican government or the CEC can pick up on any false reporting by comparing suspect reports with emissions reported from similar plants in Canada and the United States.

“You have all these years of data from the United States and Canada. All they have to do is match facilities and come up with approximate numbers. If it doesn’t fall within the expected range, you have every right to pick up the phone and ask what is going on with the data,” he says.

But, he cautions that the government must follow up, conducting a “non-responder survey” to pick up emitting industries that have not reported.

“Of course, as was the experience in the United States and Canada in the early years of their PRTR programs, there is a learning curve for both governments and industry to put in place mechanisms to ensure data in the reports are of high quality,” says Keith Chanon, program manager for PRTR at the CEC.

“Access to information, which has been taken for granted by Canadians and Americans for years, is only recently a political reality in Mexico. It is a process that can take years, but the benefits are limitless.”

Miguel Ladrón, environmental manager for Cementos Apasco, says his company welcomes the new testing and reporting regulations because they will show the world that Apasco emissions are already at “sustainable” levels.

“We are good companies, concerned about our reputation. I think we will have good results in the emissions; we will measure more and we will show that the Mexican cement industry is the most modern in the world.”

Francisco Sanchez is anxious to see the proof in the numbers. “I have one child, four months old. To have access to the information about the emissions and the chemicals they use there. . .Yes, it will be good.”

Chanon says that only by better understanding industrial inputs and emissions “is it possible to target reductions and introduce innovation that will ultimately improve the health of our communities and better protect the environment.”

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