Crossing over: Toxic waste

U.S. lacks good data on hazardous materials trucked from Mexico
By Mike Lee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Photo by Nelvin Cepeda / Union-Tribune

While U.S. politicians debate how best to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border, huge holes plague America's system for counting and inspecting toxic waste migrating north from Mexico.

U.S. environmental officials can't say how much of the waste is trucked in each year, what the top sources of that waste are or which chemicals get transported most through border crossing points, including the Otay Mesa and Calexico stations – where hazardous waste gets funneled into California.

This lack of data, compounded by spotty inspections, has hampered regulatory efforts at the state and national levels. It also has undermined scrutiny of major waste importers because there is almost no way for the public to know who these companies are without sorting through thousands of forms.

Some environmentalists and border regulators even suggest that terrorists could take advantage of the limited inspections to shuttle dangerous materials into the United States.