Environmental impacts of the Mexico–United States border
The environmental impacts of the Mexico–United States border are numerous, including the disposal of hazardous waste, increase of air pollution, threats to essential water resources, and ecosystem fragmentation.
[4] The agreement entails that both parties must take responsibility for their border area and have the right to raise concerns if one state's environmental hazards linger into the other.
[5] Robert J. McCarthy, writing in the Water Law Review, states that the IBWC, has become an anachronism in which there is lack of oversight, regulation, and distribution of the natural resources between both countries.
Border 2012 was initiated in April 2003 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Mexico's Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT).
The program completed over 400 projects using a community-based approach that prioritized the most serious environmental and public health concerns reported by residents and workers along the shared border region.
Borderwide projects made huge achievements in areas such as scrap tire removal, providing safe drinking water systems and connecting homes to wastewater facilities, government collection of unused pesticides and agro-chemicals, improved emergency response and readiness in case of an environmental disaster, created coordinated binational responses in the event of an emergency along the border, community cleanups and solid waste removal from various waterways on both sides of the border, properly removing or recycling e-waste in U.S. and Mexico, and took inventories of greenhouse gas emissions (GHE).
[10] This act ensures that CBP evaluates all environmental hazards that can affect the ecosystem, endangered species, or indigenous tribes along the border.
[11] Along with tests, CBP must also reach out to stake holders, non-government organizations, state, and indigenous tribes to maximize and sustain potential outcomes.
"[13] The study identified the most "at risk" species as the Arroyo toad (Anaxyrus californicus), California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii), black-spotted newt (Notophthalmus meridionalis), Pacific pond turtle (Clemmys marmorata), and jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi).
[16][17][18] Wall construction would also cause increased greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change, due to the concrete manufacturing that would be required.
"[20] In April 2017, the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, and U.S. Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, the ranking Democratic member on the House Committee on Natural Resources filed a lawsuit in federal court in Tucson.
[21][22] The lawsuit specifically seeks "to stop any work until the government agrees to analyze the impact of construction, noise, light and other changes to the landscape on rivers, plants and endangered species—including jaguars, Sonoran pronghorns and ocelots—and also on border residents".
[23] In addition to the Center for Biological Diversity, a number of other wildlife advocacy and environmental organizations have opposed construction of a border wall.
[29] A 2003 report by the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the EPA noted that: "Abandonment of hazardous wastes has been a serious problem because of the apparent ease with which responsible parties have been able to avoid enforcement actions by crossing the border.
While cooperation between U.S. and Mexican enforcement authorities should theoretically prevent such occurrences, complaints about abandoned or unremediated sites and the failure to hold the responsible parties accountable have been persistent.
"[30] Among the more infamous border hazardous-waste sites named in the report were Metales y Derivados, an abandoned lead battery recycling plant, and Alco Pacifico facility, both in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.
[35] The construction of this wall also questions the future of treaties signed between both nations such as the International Boundary and Water Commission and La Paz Agreement.
[37] According to Christoph Meinrenken, an associate research scientist at Columbia University's Earth Institute, a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) wall would require an estimated 275 million cubic feet of concrete.
[39] The two deserts along the border region are fragile due to small disturbances or changes impacting plant and animal life in significant ways.
[40] Ecosystems provide wide services such as: "...food, fiber, regulation of clean water and climate stability, physical protection from extreme events, including flooding and drought, pest mitigation, recreation, and educational and inspirational opportunities that are vital to the prosperity, safety and well-being of both the U.S. and Mexican public".
[39] The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the Sabal Palm Audubon Center and Sanctuary are important ecological areas along the border.
[42] Jesse Lasky, an assistant professor of biology at Penn State University, led a study on the impact of barriers published in the journal Diversity and Distributions in 2011.
This split the traditional homelands of various federally recognized tribes such as the Kumeyaay, Pai, Cocopah, O'odham, Yaqui, Apache, and Kickapoo peoples as well as unrecognized indigenous groups and communities along the Mexico-United States Border.
"Off-reservation activity like the congestion of traffic, extraction of resources, and the unregulated burning and dumping of hazardous waste" is reported to have led to air pollution on reservations.
[28] The Tohono O'odham Nation is a tribal group composed of six indigenous villages living on the border region between Mexico and the United States.
[52] “According to Tohono O’odham Nation officials, contractors cleared a large area near the springs, destroying a burial site that the Tribe had sought to protect” whilst preparing for border wall construction.
[54][55] The Cocopah Indian tribe has been advocating against further construction of the border wall on its land near Yuma and near the Colorado River Delta citing it as a safety concern, barrier, and for its impact on native wildlife, vegetation and cultural practices.
[56][57] The Lipan Apache have sought United Nations support and have fought an extensive legal battle with the US federal government alleging that the border walls construction discriminates against them for depriving them of their land and prohibiting their right to religious expression.
In fact, both tribes have advocated alongside the Lipan Apache, Cocopah, Pascua Yaqui, Kumeyaay, and Tohono O'odham for its environmental and cultural impact on their communities ways of life.
[67] By 2009, the risk of dying while crossing the border in Arizona was 17 times greater than it was a decade earlier, according to one analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union.
