Mexico's Late-Breaking Sunshine Rules Open New Era of Toxics Reporting Talli Nauman - CIP Americas
go to original January 30, 2014

Mexico’s Jan. 24 federal register notice laying out the 200 pollutants that factories now must report annually opens the curtain for the sun to shine after a nearly 20-year-long grassroots crusade to secure the public’s right to know about hazardous waste.

Environmental organizations in Mexico, the United States and Canada have been bucking for enforcement of mandatory disclosure of industrial toxic emissions ever since authorities of the three countries in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) agreed in a 1995 resolution that this country’s practices and standards should be comparable to its northern neighbors.

However, dating back four presidential terms to the administration of Ernesto Zedillo, the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat) has been promising to promulgate the rules — and breaking the promises.

Behind the federal flimflam has been a gaggle of backward-looking corporate henchmen. They don’t recognize the economic advantages their colleagues abroad enjoy as a result of the accountability requirements for facility-specific chemical discharges in other countries.

With the new list of 200 specific pollutants, at least some of the facts will be revealed about companies’ releases to air, water, and land of dozens of environmental bad-boys, ranging from arsenic and asbestos, to warfarin and xylene.

Read the rest at CIP Americas

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