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Controversial plans to locate hazardous and radioactive waste facilities near the border have generated
opposition from a new source: Mexico. Mexico is concerned that such facilities could contaminate the Rio Grande, which divides Texas from Mexico, as well as underground aquifers that traverse
both sides of the border.
For example, a proposal to build a 600-acre hazardous waste and PCB landfill near Dryden, about fifteen miles
from the border, was opposed by the City of Del Rio, the National Park Service, the adjacent Mexican state of Coahuila, and many others. Chemical Waste Management eventually withdrew its
permit application after the executive director of the TNRCC and the EPA concluded that the company had failed to demonstrate that it could adequately monitor groundwater underneath the
proposed site.
The Mexican government sent diplomatic notes to the U.S. State Department, citing Article 2 of the La Paz
Agreement and protesting this landfill and a proposal for radioactive materials landfill proposed by Texcor near Brackettville. Both governments agreed to protect a strip 62 miles wide on
each side of the border from environmental degradation. The TNRCC rejected the Texcor landfill application in 1993.
In the previously discussed matter of the Sierra Blanca low-level radioactive waste site, the State Office of
Administrative Hearings approved the participation of several Mexican political representatives, including a city council member of Ciudad Juárez, as "parties" to the 1998 contested-case
hearing.* This participation ultimately helped lead to the rejection of the permit for the low-level radioactive site.
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