A permanent US-Mexico border environmental health commission. Council on Scientific Affairs

Public health officials, physicians, and politicians have long been aware of the squalid environmental conditions existing along the US-Mexico border. Some attempts have been made to improve the environmental pollution and causes of human disease, beginning as early as the 1930s with the IBWC, established in 1889. More recent agreements and legislation have called for US and Mexico cooperation by way of each nation's corresponding environmental agency (ie, the EPA and Mexico's SEDUE) and their agencies of foreign affairs (ie, the IBWC). Nevertheless, environmental monitoring and disease incidence data continue to point out that public and environmental health along the border--the result of uncontrolled air and water pollution and lack of disease vector control--is rapidly deteriorating and seriously affecting the health and future economic vitality on both sides of the border. Many prominent public health professionals and environmental organizations are concerned that the present working relationship between the United States and Mexico is not functioning well and cannot adequately cope with existing environmental conditions; for one thing, the efforts of the EPA and SEDUE are reviewed no more frequently than once a year by a staff quartered in Washington and Mexico City. Some projects to improve these conditions have been undertaken by the EPA and SEDUE and the IBWC; at present, the prospects for success do not appear promising. Consequently, these individuals and organizations have urged creation of a US-Mexico border environmental health commission. Congress did see fit last year to give responsibility for the environment to the IBWC in the form of Public Law 100-465. This law, however, does not address the full severity of environmental and public health degradation along the border; it does not address the pollution of the New River, Agua Prieta, the San Pedro River, or the Pacific Ocean, neither does it offer remedial control of hazardous waste sites, rabies, and other disease vectors. Moreover, the IBWC is only a deliberative body, not an implementing one.