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Category: Border Environmental Justice

Environmental Health Coalition, Colectivo Ollín Calli, and members of the Colectivo Chilpancingo Pro Justicia Ambiental, Jóvenes Pro Justicia Ambiental, residents of the Colonia Chilpancingo and neighborhoods adjacent to the Arroyo Alamar and their supporters announced the submission of a petition to procure an injunction against the Arroyo Alamar channelization project that the National Water Commission is developing.

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For more information visit www.alamarsustentable.org or email EHC's Border Environmental Justice Campaign Organizer.

The Arroyo Alamar originates in the United States near Campo in eastern San Diego County, flows into the Tecate River near the town of Tecate in Baja California, and changes its name to the Arroyo Alamar once it enters Tijuana. It then flows through the community of Chilpancingo, into the Tijuana River, and eventually into the Pacific Ocean near Imperial Beach, California. A few decades ago, it was a clean space where people from the nearby communities could fish and drink its water. The presence of the maquiladora assembly plant industry seriously contaminated the river near Colonias Chilpancingo, Murúa and Nueva Esperanza. Residents there would have liked to see it returned to a riparian habitat, but channelization of the river has already begun.

However, the portion of the river closest to the Tecate River contains a wide variety of plants and animals native to the region. It is an invaluable ecosystem that could mitigate the contamination resulting from the Maquiladora industries. The youth group of EHC's Tijuana affiliate, the Colectivo Chilpancingo Pro Justicia Ambiental (the Chilpancingo Collective for Environmental Justice), is working to save this watershed.

 

Cómic Book: Mi Comunidad y el Alamar

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Category: Border Environmental Justice

air-pollutionOn October 11, 2011, EHC and our Mexican affiliate the Chilpancingo Collective for Environmental Justice marked an important victory in the bi-national campaign to restrict maquiladora truck traffic from Colonia Chilpancingo and Murúa, where diesel emissions from the trucks have caused respiratory problems for school children.

Signage was posted in August 2011 banning the trucks from the streets where the schools are located. EHC, alongside members of the Collective and its youth group, conducted a campaign for more than two years seeking to restrict semi-truck traffic driving past the three public schools in the neighborhood.

Semi-trucks serving the maquiladora assembly plants take shortcuts through the neighborhood exposing 2,000 school children, and everyone who lives and works in the area, to high levels of diesel emissions. Experts associate these diesel emissions with serious health risks, including asthma, cancer and heart disease. More than 1,000 supporters signed the petition circulated by EHC, the collective and youth group, demanding a halt to the invasion of semi-trucks from the adjacent industrial park, the largest in Tijuana.

The World Health Organization recently changed diesel emissions from the "possible carcinogen" list to the "carcinogen" list.

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Category: Metales y Derivados Toxic Site

Citizen's Petition to the NAFTA
Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)

The CEC established a process for citizens of the NAFTA countries to file a petition against the government of any of the participating countries (the United States, Mexico and Canada) for failing to effectively enforce its environmental laws. EHC was one of the first to take advantage of this process in October 1998. A copy of our petition can be found at: http://www.cec.org/files/pdf/sem/98-7-SUB-OE.pdf

Information on submitting a citizen's petition is at: http://www.cec.org/citizen/guide_submit/index.cfm?varlan=english

CEC report NAFTA's Commission for Environmental Cooperation accepted [EHC and the Colonia Chilpancingo's Citizens' Submission Petition] in 1998 and released its [Metales y Derivados Final Factual Record] in 2002, confirming the community's concerns about high levels of toxics at the site.

http://www.cec.org/citizen/submissions/details/index.cfm?varlan=english&ID=67

Community/Government Agreements

The cleanup agreement, the agreement to establish the Working Group, and the agreement to finalize the cleanup project, signed in June and July 2004 and July 2008 respectively, are landmarks for environmental justice. These documents are only available in Spanish.

Selected Cleanup Process Documents

These documents record key moments in the struggle to clean up Metales y Derivados.
Foro sobre Metales y Derivados Historia y Lucha de la Colonia Chilpancingo. These documents are only available in Spanish.

Community Monitoring Record

Independent Consultant's Final Monitoring Report to the Community on the cleanup.

Media coverage

For links to many of the print articles written over the past ten years, click here.

Toxinformer articles

Environmental Health Coalition has documented many important moments in the struggle to clean up the toxic Metales y Derivados site in our newsletters.

The Great March for Border Environmental Justice: (August 2001)

Tijuana residents demand cleanup of

toxic site during 24-hour vigil: (April 2002)

Community pressure makes Mexican officials

take action at Metales site: (Click to View)

Chilpancingo residents present

community-based solution ... (July 2003, page 3

Update: Developments in the fight

to cleanup Metales y Derivados (October 2003, page 10)

EHC, Colectivo Chilpancingo form Metales cleanup... (April 2004, page 8)

Victory at last! Community celebrates... (August 2004, page 3)

Metales Y Derivados Update: (February 2006, page 9)

After More Than a Decade of Struggle,

Community Celebrates... (December 2007, page 4)

Articles and Books

The following writings put the struggle to clean up the toxic Metales y Derivados site in the worldwide context of environmental justice.

1. WARREN COUNTY'S LEGACY FOR MEXICO'S BORDER MAQUILADORAS, an article by Amelia Simpson, Director of the Border Environmental Justice Campaign, published by the Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal, August 22, 2007. 

2. In "Reading Chilpancingo," English teacher Linda Christensen describes a visit to Colonia Chilpancingo in Tijuana, Spring 2006.

3. The following books all contain chapters featuring the work of EHC and the Colectivo Chilpancingo.

Challenging the Chip

Ted Smith, David Sonnenfeld, David Naguib Pellow, eds., 2006, Temple University Press, includes a chapter discussing NAFTA, environmental justice and labor rights in the U.S.-Mexico border region written by Connie García and Amelia Simpson, Director of the Border Environmental Justice Campaign.

Out of the Sea and Into the Fire: Latin American-U.S. Immigration in the Global Age

Kari Lydersen, 2005, Common Courage Press, includes a chapter featuring EHC and the Colectivo's struggle to clean up Metales y Derivados and address the injustices of NAFTA in the border region.

Nafta from Below

Published by the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, includes a chapter on the Metales y Derivados struggle.

Video

See EHC communities mobilizing for environmental justice in the cross-border region.

1. Maquilápolis

2. Journey to Planet Earth "Future Conditional"

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Category: Metales y Derivados Toxic Site

The ten-year struggle to clean up the abandoned Tijuana lead smelter, Metales y Derivados, culminated in late 2008 and represents a binational environmental justice and public health victory. EHC and the Colectivo Chilpancingo Pro Justicia Ambiental thank the following people and organizations, whose support and efforts made the cleanup of Metales y Derivados possible, as well as the thousands more who signed petitions and postcards, joined us for actions, and shared their talents and resources supporting our efforts:

Irene Silvia Aguilar  • Guadalupe Aguirre De Luján • María Luisa Altamirano • Martha Ángel Arias • José Bravo  • Trinidad Calleros Isabel  • Lupita Castaneda • Inés Castillo M • Magdalena Cerda • Martha Cervantes Soberanez • María De La Luz Chávez Pérez • Paula Contreras Delgadillo • Soledad Contreras Salazar • María Coronado Jiménez • Carolina Cruz García • Verónica Cruz García • Marisol Díaz Bautista • Beatriz Domínguez Macías • Dora Esther Domínguez Ramos • Luz Elena Félix • María de Jesús Flores • Myrna Patricia Flores Díaz • Yanira Fonseca Mendoza • Julieta Fuentes Ramos • Vicky Funari • Blanca Ofelia Gallardo • Connie García • Elva García Calleros • Eva García Calleros • José Antonio García • Parvin Elvira García Calleros • Sandra V García Chincoya • Jorge Glackman-Guerra • Carmen Hernández Preciado • Pilar Jaime Castro • Margarita Jaimes • Cruz Adriana Jiménez Rodríguez • Martina Juárez Rodarte • Ana Langarica Vallecillos • Evangelina Langarica V • Geomara Lara Ruíz • Joanna Itzel Lerma Luján • Blanca E López • Casimira López Solórzano • Luz López Hernández • María Guadalupe Luján Aguirre • María De Lourdes Luján Aguirre • César Luna • Adela Martínez Castro • Sandra Martínez • Enrique Medina • María Meléndez De Fong • Rosalba Mendoza Ibarra • María Guadalupe Mercado • Kenia Elizabeth Meza Cervantes • María Consuelo Muñoz López • Esteban Naranjo • Martha Ojeda • Micaela Ontiveros B • José Efraín Ortega Contreras • María Leonor Ortega Ledesma • Sara Noemí Osuna • Jermán Páez Rodríguez • Yesenia Palomares Rodríguez • Andrea Pedro Aguilar • María Luisa Pérez Mendoza • Margarita Pérez De Chávez • Sonia Pérez Gómez • María Alicia Ramos O • Silvia Rangel López • Olga Marta Rendón • María Elena Rojo Ramírez • Guadalupe Ruíz • Juan M. Ruíz Ofiga • María Guadalupe Ruíz Mendoza • Aurora Salazar Flores • María De La Luz Salcedo • David Saldaña Seguro • Vicenta Saucedo Escobedo • Magdalena Silva Ramírez • Amelia Simpson • Kazuo Tanaka • Sergio De La Torre • Dulce María Torres Velarde • Gonzalo Valdez Delgado • Martha Valdes • Yolanda Valez D • Graciela Villalvaso • Emeteria Areli Villatoro Córdova • Karina Elizabeth Zavala Romero • Border 2012 Program • Border Environmental Cooperation Commission • CITTAC • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency • Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales • Secretaría de Protección al Ambiente del Estado de Baja California • Charles Stewart Mott Foundation • Colin Rodríguez Griswold Memorial Fund • French American Charitable Trust • Ford Foundation Global Greengrants Fund • Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation • John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation • Marguerite Casey Foundation • Marisla Foundation • Mitchell Kapor Foundation • Nathan Cummings Foundation • New World Foundation • New York Community Trust • North American Fund for Environmental Cooperation • Orca Fund at the San Diego Foundation • Panta Rhea Foundation • Solidago Foundation • Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock

Subcategories

Climate Justice

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Low-income communities of color must lead when it comes to climate solutions. The climate crisis is real, is here, and affects us all, but it hits low-income communities of color first and worst. Environmental Justice (EJ) communities are at the center of the issue and we are the solution.

The Climate Justice Working Group defines climate justice as: “ensuring that the people and communities who are least culpable in the warming of the planet, and most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, do not suffer disproportionately as a result of historical injustice and disinvestment”. Unfortunately, the impacts of climate change are disproportionately felt by low-income communities of color, and it is these same communities who “have been kept out of the global processes to address climate change” (Indigenous Environmental Network, North America).1 As a result, Climate Justice affirms the rights of indigenous people and communities most affected by climate change to lead with the solutions. EJ communities represent and speak for themselves.

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Climate scientists predict significant changes in the San Diego region, like extreme heat, water shortages, drought, increased wild fire intensity and frequency, increased air pollution, sea-level rise and coastal flooding. The effects of climate change hit first and worst in EJ communities such as Barrio Logan, City Heights and National City The effects are magnified because these neighborhoods house the largest sources of pollution and are already burdened by inadequate infrastructure, limited transportation options, and poor economic opportunities.

EHC’s Climate Justice Campaign works to ensure that the residents of Barrio Logan, City Heights and National City are able to speak for themselves and advance climate policies at the local, regional, state levels.

Campaign Core Elements:

1. Start Here, Star Now: An Environmental Justice Assessment of the San Diego Climate Action Plan.
The prioritization of Environmental Justice Communities for climate related investments is key to real climate solutions. When cities advance environmental justice, everyone benefits.
2. Transportation Justice. Transformation of the San Diego region into a mass transit paradise where EJ community residents will not have to own a car to access jobs, go to the doctor, go to school and take care of their basic needs. Mass transit is the way.
3. Energy Democracy. Organizing to ensure investments in renewable energy are achieved for residents of low-income communities of color. Renters want solar too.

1 Indigenous Environmental Network, North America, et al. Bali Principles of Climate Justice (2002) https://www.ejnet.org/ej/bali.pdf

Green Energy

Renters need clean energy too. In San Diego, non EJ communities have more than double the residential solar (40 per 1000 residents) compared to EJ communities (18 per 1000 residents).55 We attribute this discrepancy to a variety of barriers making solar installation difficult to access and afford for all people.

San Diego is a “solar star,” but not for environmental justice communities. According to a 2018 report by Environment California, San Diego has the second most solar power capacity among the 69 cities surveyed. Unfortunately, installed solar power does not extend to EJ communities.

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The map titled Installed Residential KiloWatts of Solar Power, per 1000 Residents, by Zipcode, City of San Diego, 2017 shows the geography of the number of kilowatts installed per 1,000 residents. The table titled Average Number of Solar Installations per 1000 people includes this metric and the average number of installations broken out by EJ communities, City, and non-EJ communities. Both statistics highlight that residential solar power installation in EJ communities is minimal.

A study done by the California Energy Commission identified barriers and recommendations to bridge the clean energy gap for low-income customers and small business contracting opportunities in disadvantaged communities. The structural barriers identified include low home ownership rates, insufficient access to capital, and aged buildings. The report by the California Energy Commission is an excellent guide to inform the implementation of the San Diego CAP.

Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH)

In 2015, the California Environmental Justice Alliance together with the Center for Sustainable Energy, GRID Alternatives, and the Association for Energy Affordability, with the support of EJ allies like Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) secured passage of California Assembly Bill 693. This legislation provides $1 billion to install solar on multifamily affordable homes in disadvantaged communities across the state.

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EHC will build awareness of AB 693 and the need for solar energy in EJ Communities and provide funding application technical support to increase solar deployment on low-income multifamily housing complexes in National City, Barrio Logan, and City Heights, so that they too can benefit from the utility savings from renewable energy and energy efficiency.

What to learn more, support, and get involved:

• Contact Caro This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 619-474-0220 ext 131
• DONATE to EHC

Healthy Kids

Children in our communities deserve healthy homes and communities where they can grow up without exposure to toxic chemicals.

  • Asthma attacks resulting in hospitalizations and emergency room visits are up to three times higher for children living in communities with high levels of air pollution
  • Many homes in low-income communities were built before 1979 and still have lead-based paint
  • More than 15 years ago, parents reported their children getting sick after ingesting candy later found to have high levels of lead

EHC’s Healthy Kids Campaign works to reduce or eliminate environmental childhood health hazards and promote homes and communities that are safe, healthy, accessible and affordable.

Learn more about Children and Toxics, Childhood Lead-Poisoning Prevention and Lead-Free Candy.

Toxic-Free Neighborhoods

Low-income communities of color have long struggled with discriminatory land-use practices that diminish our health, safety, and quality of life.

Toxic mixes of industrial development, freeways, and truck routes are concentrated in low-income neighborhoods alongside homes and schools. At the root of this all-too-common pattern are discriminatory land-use regulations that do not protect the community's health.

The way our neighborhoods are planned– or are allowed to degrade because of lack of planning – determines the levels of air pollution and concentration of toxic industries residents experience. Simultaneously, low-income communities of color experience a lack of affordable housing and limited access to public transit, open space and healthy food. Environmental justice will exist when all neighborhoods are treated equally.

The diligence of our dedicated community leaders has resulted in monumental environmental justice victories. Some of these include:

No one is more entitled to determine the future of a community than the residents themselves. EHC's Social Change for Justice Model embodies this belief. By empowering community members through leadership development, organizing and collective advocacy efforts, residents become community leaders whom we advocate with for healthy communities, healthy homes, and environments that are both safe and clean, working to ultimately achieve social and environmental justice.

Community Land-Use Planning

Under California law, all municipalities are required to complete General Plans that provide a blueprint for a long-range vision for cities. EHC successfully advocated for an Environmental Health and Justice element in the National City General Plan and a buffer zone between polluters and homes/schools in the Chula Vista General Plan – both firsts in the state. State law does not require the completion of community, area and specific plans, but when executed they apply General Plan standards to a specific geographic area to enable communities to determine the density, building height, zoning and amenities for their neighborhoods.

EHC’s community-driven planning efforts have focused on these plans because they offer the opportunity for self-determination for residents and enable residents to be proactive rather than reactive to inappropriate development proposals. The process also represents a holistic strategy for a community to engage in planning. It may allow residents, perhaps for the first time, to envision their community using their values and aspirations, not the developer’s or the city councilmember’s.

EHC currently works on community-driven land-use planning in Barrio Logan, City Heights and Sherman/Logan Heights in the City of San Diego, and in National City.

In each community, the underlying process is the same.

Building Community Power

BarrioLoganCommunityPlanningAuthentic community involvement in every aspect of community planning and visioning leads to better outcomes that respect neighborhoods and their residents. EHC’s core strategies for all our efforts include community organizing and policy advocacy, which we combine with grassroots leadership development, research and communications to implement each strategic plan. To ensure that the community’s voice is heard, EHC employs the following tactics:

  • Community Action Teams
    In each community, EHC establishes a Community Action Team comprising residents trained as EHC leaders. These leaders develop the community vision and priorities that direct our efforts. They serve as spokespersons for the campaign at meetings with elected officials and government agency representatives and on various planning committees established to oversee plan development.
    José Medina, National City resident since 1969 and EHC leader, expressed his hopes for the Old Town National City Specific Plan when he said: “The plan will allow me to see the neighborhood change into something I remember when I was a boy, when a lot of residents were connecting with each other. In the mid-80s it changed for the worse – I saw houses flattened and autobody shops moved in.”
  • Leadership Training— SALTA (Salud Ambiental Líderes Tomando Acción -- Environmental Health, Leaders Taking Action)
    All EHC leaders complete an eight-session Core SALTA training program providing them with skills and knowledge to become effective advocates and community organizers. A five-session mini-SALTA focusing on land use also provides training on redevelopment, zoning, and affordable housing, plus air quality, contaminated site cleanup, reducing industrial pollution, and sustainable building, including green building materials and renewable energy options.

  • Conducting Community Surveys
    EHC Leaders commit to understanding the priorities of their neighbors and representing those needs when developing EHC platforms and positions. They utilize community surveying as a method for collecting and documenting these needs. In National City, for example, leaders surveyed residents and found that the highest priorities included development of affordable housing, relocation of auto body shops and changing zoning to prohibit incompatible mixed-use. These community priorities were incorporated into the community plan.

  • Community Visioning
    Once aware of the impact and importance of community planning EHC leaders in both Barrio Logan and Old Town National City elected to develop their own neighborhood vision. EHC raised funds to employ a land-use planning firm to work with residents to develop detailed plans with zoning changes, volume and affordability levels of new housing units, identification of industries for relocation, park acreage, school requirements and more. Barrio Logan’s community plan—one of the City of San Diego’s oldest—had not been updated since 1978. After years of promises and delays, residents took planning into their own hands. This resulted in the Barrio Logan Vision, now endorsed by over 1,000 area residents, community organizations and local businesses. EHC then secured $1.5 million from a neighboring downtown development agency for the City to update and revise the official Barrio Logan Community Plan, a process starting in early 2008. EHC pushes for the community plan update to be consistent with the Barrio Logan Vision.

    Hilda Valenzuela, EHC leader and Barrio Logan resident, expressed her excitement about the start of the planning process: “I hope with the Community Plan Update process we can resolve the problems sooner – improve affordable housing, have a healthier environment for children and a better place to live.”

Ensure Healthy Neighborhoods

For many years, EHC has promoted pollution prevention and the precautionary principle as the best way to prevent toxic exposure for community residents and workers. Communities subjected to toxic exposure due to discriminatory zoning need to take action to protect themselves and create separation between residential and industrial land uses. They must also ensure that industrial businesses adopt and implement the most up-to-date technology.

  • Buffer Zones
    EHC proposed the Toxic-Free Neighborhoods Ordinance in the City of San Diego in 1990, which would have required a buffer between industries using or emitting hazardous materials and residences, schools, and day care centers. Local polluters spent thousands of dollars lobbying against the ordinance and ultimately defeated it. Without an ordinance, EHC targeted polluters that chronically violated the law. Master Plating fit the bill with over 150 violations on the books. Community organizing efforts compelled the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and local government to take action resulting in Master Plating’s shutdown in 2002. CARB’s monitoring revealed a cancer risk four times higher than a "typical urban area" due to hexavalent chromium emissions. As a result of this local action, CARB developed the Air Quality and Land Use Handbook in 2005 that recommended buffers for many polluters for the first time in state or local regulatory history. The recommended buffer for chrome platers is 1,000 feet. The distance between Master Plating and the house next door was 4 feet. The guidance document also recommends separation of housing and major roadways, which presents difficulties with "transit-oriented development" that may encourage development very near freeways.

    Elvia Martinez, Master Plating’s next door neighbor and EHC leader, said: “This is the way it’s supposed to work…when a community works together to make its neighborhood a better place to live.”

  • Zoning
    Community plans can include zoning ordinances that determine where industrial, commercial and residential areas can be located. "Mixed-use" zoning that allows free uses in the same area plagues Barrio Logan and National City. EHC seeks specific zoning designations in the new community plans that separate industrial areas from residential areas and remove incompatible mixed-use zoning.

  • Polluter Relocation and Removal
    Rules that prohibit new sensitive uses near pollution sources help, but to restore residential neighborhoods and make them healthy places to live, polluters adjacent to homes and schools must be relocated. EHC has pursued several tactics to accomplish this. In National City, the City Council adopted an amortization ordinance that will phase out industries currently allowed to operate near sensitive uses such as schools. The ordinance sets up a process for relocation of prioritized industries when the amortization period is triggered.

Leadership Development

No one knows the struggle of living with toxic pollution like the people who face this challenge every day. “We Speak for Ourselves” is the principle that EHC works to achieve through our leadership development program that ensures that those affected should have the opportunity to raise their own voices and demand change.

Leadership development is critical to achieving success and is a one of EHC’s three primary strategies in our Social Change for Justice Model that enables the power of the base to be directed towards our goals.

EHC Tree

EHC’s signature leadership training, SALTA (Salud Ambiental, Líderes Tomando Acción – Environmental Health, Leaders Taking Action), is provided to all EHC leaders who serve on our Community Action Teams. In 2017, SALTA celebrated its 20th anniversary with more than 2,500 local graduates who have participated. . EHC has now packaged the successful training into a web-based, interactive leadership development curriculum that enables leaders around the globe have the skills and experience necessary to achieve environmental justice in their own communities.

For leaders passionate about transforming their neighborhoods, our Creating Healthy Neighborhoods:Community Planning to Overcome Injustice video and curriculum uses real-life examples and case studies to show how anyone can become advocates and activists for social and environmental justice through community planning.

Border Environmental Justice

Communities on an international border have the great privilege and responsibility of transcending boundaries and merging two cultures into one unique way of life. EHC’s Border Environmental Justice Campaign reduces toxic pollution caused by maquiladora industries in Tijuana and promotes fair trade and globalization for justice.

Our involvement in the border region began in 1983 with the co-sponsorship of an International Environmental Conference in Tijuana. Cross-border relationships continued to grow around a variety of social and environmental justice issues. We formed our Border Environmental Justice Campaign in 1993 with efforts to halt the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, in recognition of the devastation caused by unjust trade along the border.

Our Tijuana Community Action Team, the Colectivo Chilpancingo Pro Justicia Ambiental, inaugurated EHC's office in Colonia Chilpancingo in 2002 to support local residents committed to the struggle for environmental justice in Mexico and along the border.

Watch the videos and read more about EHC's historic successful efforts, including:

Metales y Derivados Toxic Site

leadbundlesWith corporate globalization, trade increased along the U.S.-Mexico border and so did pollution. However, trade agreements like NAFTA fail to hold polluting corporations responsible or to provide resources for environmental protection.

Of the 66 documented toxic waste sites in Mexican border states, the most infamous is Tijuana's Metales y Derivados, a U.S.-owned maquiladora factory that recycled batteries imported from the U.S. The owner, José Kahn, fled across the border when the maquiladora was shut down in 1994 after community reports of health problems and repeated violations of environmental law documented by the Mexican government. Mr. Kahn left behind 23,000 tons of mixed contaminated waste, including 7,000 tons of lead slag, exposed to the elements and threatening workers and families living in the adjacent Tijuana neighborhood of Colonia Chilpancingo.

EHC and the community conducted a campaign for over a decade to compel a cleanup. In 1998, EHC and the community filed a petition with NAFTA's environmental agency, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.

The commission's report, released in 2002, concluded that the site represented a "grave risk to human health." Yet the commission has no authority or resources to clean up toxic sites. After over a decade of organizing and advocacy, EHC and the community finally celebrated the signing of a landmark cleanup agreement in 2004 with the Mexican government and the formation of a bi-national, community/government working group. The cleanup was completed in 2008, ahead of schedule, and included independent community monitoring. (Download the full cleanup chronology.)

Metales y Derivados is the poster child for the failure of NAFTA to live up to its negotiators' promise to protect public health and the environment. However, Metales y Derivados symbolizes environmental justice achieved. The case established for the first time a structure for cross-border and community/government collaboration on toxic site cleanups.