by Jeff Barnet, FNS Co-Editor and Claudia Vallejo, FNS Staff Writer

Protests against the proposed Sierra Blanca Low-Level Radioactive Waste Facility, slated to be built in the Texas wastelands only 16 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border and Ciudad Juárez, grew in number and force throughout the month of August. A four-day binational march from August 6 to August 9 drew 250 participants from both the U.S. and Mexican sides of the border, according to a report in the El Paso Times.

On August 20, coalitions from Juárez and El Paso fighting the waste site gave Texas Governor George W. Bush until September 15 to change his mind about continuing construction on the controversial waste facility. Coalition leader Andrés Mares said if Bush did not answer, "he will hear about it in the elections."

The Texas gubernatorial race will be decided November 3.

The coalitions were joined in their dissent by the director of Greenpeace in Mexico, Alejandro Calvillo, who said that the United States "has underestimated the risks and consequences of the area selected for the dump." In particular, Calvillo said that the area presented geographiocal fractures, seismic activity, and vulnerability to erosion. He said that on April 13, 1995, there was an earth tremblor in the Sierra Blanca region that reached 5.6 on the Richter scale. Furthermore, he said 64 tremblors had been registered within 250 kilometers of the site between 1923 and 1993.

Calvillo reiterated an earlier criticism of the project being an example of "environmental racism," citing the fact that 68% of the people living near the proposed dump are Mexican-Americans.

Protestors received a serious setback earlier in the month when the U.S. House of Representatives voted 305 to 117 to approve the Sierra Blanca Waste Compact, July 29. The pact is controversial because some of the modifications made to it. Previous passages of the pact would have allowed only three states to send waste to Sierra Blanca. But, according to opponents, the pact aproved by the House could bring other major implications.

"Waste from all over the country could be sent to the poor, largely Hispanic community," said protestors.

Other protestors maintain that the only reason for the waste dump to be constructed is money. "Texas needs the nuclear waste sent by other states because that will bring money to Texas. It will get 25 millions dollars from the states of Vermont and Maine," said Bill Addington, member of the Legal Fund for the Defense of Sierra Blanca.

The U.S. Senate has postponed voting on the issue at the request of Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat from Minnesota.

After the House vote, protestors from both the U.S. and Mexico vowed to take their concerns to the United Nations.

Promoters of the waste facility, however, distributed an extensive report August 18 that defended the project. Lee Mathews, legal adviser for the the Texas Authority on Low Intensity Radioactive Waste Facilities, contends in the report that "we suitably studied the fault and socioeconomic questions." Furthermore, Mathews rejected the idea, championed by protestors, that open forums concerning the waste facility should be held throughout the state and their findings and opinions forwarded to the Texas Commission on the Conservation of Natural Resources (TNRCC).

The TNRCC is expected to make a decision on the fate of the Sierra Blanca facility in either October or November. A spokesman for the Commission, Terry Hadley, said that members of the agency "are still investigating and listening to the arguments of people." Commissioners--all of whom were appointed by Gov. Bush, who favors the project--will formally begin to hearing process on Sierra Blanca on September 4, Hadley said.

"We all looking at all the requirements, and we are still studying the recommendations of both administrative judges," said the spokesman, referring to two Texas judges who earlier this summer recommended that the Sierra project be stopped, although the Sierra Blanca issue was out of their jurisdiction. "One of the commissioners is studying the socioeconomic impact and another is studying the possible risks of earthquake," Hadley continued.

High-level protests against the facility dominated news headlines, however.

Andrés Marés said he felt the commissioners "must realize by now that the plan is bad."

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo is expected to advocate for a halt to the project through the office of the Secretary for Environment, Natural Resources, and Fish (SEMARNAP). Clara Torres, PAN diputado, calls the project "a joke against Mexicans and international treaties."

In 1984, the U.S. And Mexico signed a treaty which stated, in part, that no "sources of contamination" would be constructed--by either country--within 100 kilometers of the border.

Federal and state deputies, as well as governors and city councilors, from all Mexican political parties from Chihuahua to Nuevo Leon have vowed to keep up the pressure on the Texas government.

Even in Texas, Governor Bush is fielding opposition from the Texas Democratic Party, whose state executive committee adopted a resolution on August 1 opposing the waste dump. Texas Republicans have not taken a stand on the issue.

U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat from El Paso, is among the many Democratic politicians who not only oppose the dump, but took part in the August 9 rally at the waste site.

More rallies and marches have been planned, including one organized by Jose Luis Rodriguez, current Juárez city councilor and former Ecological Green Party candidate for governor of Chihuahua.

According to a spokeperson for Governor Bush, Mindy Tucker, reminded protestors that the compact limits incoming waste to just Maine, Vermont, and Texas.

"The governor has not taken a position on the place for the site yet," she said.

In addition, Tucker said that Governor Bush decided to support the Texas compact after years of not having a place to store hospital waste. "Many hospitals have been storing (hospital waste) in dumpsters in parking lots," she said.

Sources: El Diario, El Norte de Ciudad Juárez, El Paso Times, State News Service-Austin Bureau