Sludge Watch ==> Mexico - Chemicals Contaminating Water

[Maureen Reilly]

Blue chemicals contaminating water
Reuters
Published: Thursday, May 03, 2007

TEHUACAN, Mexico (Reuters) -- Jeans factories have given jobs to thousands 
in the city of Tehuacan, the heartland of Mexico's denim industry, but they 
are pumping blue chemicals into rivers used to irrigate corn fields 
downstream.

Dozens of industrial laundries, some of which put the finishing touches to 
jeans for export, discharge a cocktail of bleach, dye and detergents into 
Tehuacan's wide valley with almost no government controls, residents say.

In just one example of the widespread pollution, a dark blue sludge fills a 
ditch behind a high-tech Grupo Navarra factory, where jeans are laundered 
for brands made by Levi Strauss & Co and Gap Inc.


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Font: ****E.J. Bernacki, a Levi Strauss spokesman based in San Francisco, 
said Grupo Navarra had failed an independent audit of its laundry facilities 
last year. The Levi Strauss policy was to help factories that do not meet 
its standards to correct the problem, he said.

No one at Grupo Navarra, which is controlled by a Mexican businessman, was 
available to comment.

Mexico is popular with garment firms because it is close to the United 
States, meaning a quick turnaround on fast-changing fashion lines.

Though many firms have left for cheaper China, hundreds of thousands of 
Mexicans still work in assembly plants. In Tehuacan, 118 miles southeast of 
Mexico City, about 35,000 people work in garment factories.

Water from the denim laundries runs through Tehuacan, where it mixes with 
municipal sewage and is discharged untreated in a foaming green torrent to a 
river that feeds irrigation systems in the downstream village of San Diego 
Chalma.

Farmer Mariano Barragan, 67, uses the water on his few acres of corn planted 
in fields a few minutes' drive from the center of Tehuacan.

"Sometimes it comes out blue, sometimes yellow, sometimes black,'' said 
Barragan, crumbling between his fingers the bluish gray crust the dirty 
water leaves on the soil. "I know when the chemicals are strong because the 
leaves shrivel and my skin starts itching.''

Barragan said health authorities have told him not to plant tomatoes and 
root vegetables because of a risk of contamination. But corn is permitted 
and is sold locally and to buyers from Mexico City.

Locals say they do not know if the waste water presents a long-term risk to 
their health, but some complain of chemical odours that irritate their 
throats.

"They let the strong chemicals out at night. It wakes you up because it 
catches in your throat,'' said Gerardo Diaz, who lives next to an open 
sluice bringing effluent from a small jeans laundry.

Most major jeans firms now require their suppliers to use water treatment 
plants and monitor waste water for dangerous substances.

Grupo Navarra uses a modern treatment system and last week the water coming 
from the factory was clear. However, activists say the company does not 
always switch the plant on.

"This is clear evidence that Grupo Navarra lies,'' said local rights 
activist Martin Barrios, digging a stick into the slimy indigo-coloured mud.

Gap stopped bleaching and dyeing at the factory in 2005 but does launder 
jeans there.

Industry leaders in Tehuacan blame most of the pollution on the dozens of 
small unregulated laundries that wash, bleach and dye jeans for Mexican 
brands.

"We all know Mexican firms demand less than the international brands,'' said 
Javier Lopez, spokesman for the city's industry chamber.

"Sometimes the attitude is that the water is contaminated anyway by 
unregistered factories and animal waste.'' Tehuacan is also a centre for pig 
and poultry farming.

Just outside Tehuacan, two rusting government signs stand on a derelict plot 
of land, promising the construction of a plant to treat the city's waste 
water. The signs have been there for more than five years but building has 
not begun.

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