Mexico Acts to Close Plant Taking Ink : Questions Surround Dumping in Tijuana by 11 U.S. Publishers

Mexican authorities will shut down, at least temporarily, a controversial Tijuana plant they say has been illegally processing large amounts of waste printers’ ink from California newspapers and other firms for use in producing asphalt, a Mexican health official said Thursday.

Dr. Porfirio Garcia Gonzalez, chief of the Tijuana regional office of the federal Health Secretariat, said a decision was made to close the plant after health inspectors visited it Thursday and determined that it was operating without a license.

The plant, operated by a firm called Industrias de Monte Cristo S.A., will be officially shut down today, Garcia said, although people who live near the plant say it has been closed for production for about two weeks. Officials of Industrias de Monte Cristo could not be reached for comment.

“There is no doubt that this plant was operating illegally,” Garcia said. “Unfortunately, many of these plants may be operating clandestinely, and it may be months or years before we discover it.”

Garcia said health officials intend to take samples of materials from the asphalt plant and examine them for toxicity. He said his office will then decide whether to close the plant permanently or allow it to reopen. The owners could be subject to fines and criminal charges for operating a plant without a license, Garcia said.

The plant received the ink from a licensed American waste hauler, Waste Disposal Systems of San Pedro, which contracted with 11 Southern California newspapers and printing firms to remove the waste ink.

Authorities in the United States have expressed fear that U.S. firms may be shipping their wastes to Mexico, where they may be illegally dumped, as an alternative to the rising disposal costs in the United States.

“It probably is a cost-effective outlet, at the moment, to move the stuff across the border,” Jeffrey Zelikson, deputy director of the toxics and waste management division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in San Francisco, said Thursday. “I think cost is probably the driving force.”

Meanwhile, officials for some ofthe newspapers, publishers and ink manufacturers who have contracted with Waste Disposal Systems to remove their waste ink said Thursday that they had decided to withhold further shipments until they receive more information about the plant.

Most said they have sufficient storage space to avoid shipments in the coming weeks. But others said they believe that the shipments are legal and have no plans to change.

“Right now, everything’s on hold because of the articles that have been written until we can find out just what’s going on,” said Don Phillips of Flint Ink, a large ink manufacturer based in Detroit that has a Southern California plant that sent waste to Mexico.

But Mell Kilpatrick, production manager for the Orange County Register, said, “If it’s not illegal, why should we change? My position, as far as we were concerned, is it’s perfectly legal to begin with, so I really don’t have an answer.”

Officials at Times Mirror Press, a subsidiary of Times Mirror Co. that publishes telephone directories, had a similar reaction.

“They (Times Mirror Press) say they are, as far as they know, in full compliance with what has been asked, and that they have been given a clean bill by the (state) Department of Health Services,” said Anthony Hatch, director of corporate public affairs for Times Mirror Co. Times Mirror Co. also publishes the Los Angeles Times, but The Times does not dispose of waste ink with Waste Disposal Systems.

On Tuesday, Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) accused 11 companies of having improperly shipped waste ink to Mexico for at least a year to be recycled into asphalt. Peace said the companies, which had turned the ink over to Waste Disposal Systems, had not filed all the required paper work with federal and state environmental authorities.

State Health Department officials disputed that Thursday, saying that Peace may have misinterpreted the legal requirements.

Officials of the publishing companies also have said they believe that they filed most or all of the necessary paper work.

Under California law, waste ink is hazardous if it contains certain highly flammable solvents, according to Richard Neergaard, manager for environmental services at the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. The degree of hazard varies from one newspaper to another, depending on how the newspaper handles its waste and the amounts of solvents and washes used in cleaning presses.

Neergaard said some states also consider waste ink hazardous simply because of its high oil content.

But even when waste ink is not hazardous, ordinary landfills are often unwilling to accept it, Neergaard said. For that reason, he said, many newspapers turn the waste over to a hazardous-waste hauler for special disposal simply because they have no alternative.

The ink can then be recycled to salvage its high oil content and potentially can be re-refined, Neergaard said. It can also be disposed of in hazardous-waste dumps or burned in an incinerator, according to federal and state environmental and health standards.

On Thursday, newspaper and printing company officials said they had used Waste Disposal Systems over the last few years because its method was cheaper than the recycling and disposal methods they had relied on in the past.

“Frankly, what persuaded us to switch was that everyone else in the industry was doing it,” said Harold W. Fuson Jr., general counsel at Copley Press Inc., publisher of the San Diego Union and Tribune. He said that previously the company’s ink had been recycled with a L.A. firm into bunker fuel for ships.

Don Jochens, production director for the Contra Costa Times, said his newspaper chose the Mexican alternative because recycling into asphalt seemed more environmentally sound than dumping in a hazardous-waste dump. “It was never our intention to do anything illegal,” Jochens said. “It’s been very public. We’ve filed all the documents.”

Meanwhile, representatives of EPA’s Mexican counterpart, the Secretariat of Urban Development and Ecology, also intend to inspect the asphalt plant today, said Cesar Velarde, director of social communication for the environmental office’s regional headquarters in Mexicali. He said the plant does not have the Mexican environmental license required of facilities using dangerous materials.

“We want to find out what kinds of licenses it has, what kind of safety procedures,” Velarde said. “We also want to determine if it is a grave threat to health.”

The hillside plant is situated in an industrial area amid the suburban community of La Gloria, about 10 miles south of downtown Tijuana.

On Thursday, Gary Gaston, president of Waste Disposal Systems, said the waste-ink portion of his hazardous-waste hauling operation has “come to a grinding halt” until he receives documentation from the Mexican firm proving that it is licensed and legitimate. Gaston said he should have that information by early next week and will then resume shipments.

“I really feel that this whole thing will be cleared up by the first of next week and we can get back to business,” Gaston said. “But right now, we’ll just sit and wait.”

The exact amount of ink received by Industrias is not known, but public documents filed with the California Department of Health Services suggest that the volume was large. Documents show that newspapers and other firms have wastes for shipment ranging from 1,200 to 37,000 gallons. The frequency of the shipments varied with each company, ranging from twice a month to twice a year.

Large amounts of Mexican asphalt are regularly imported into the United States for use as paving material and as bunker fuel for tankers and freighters, according to Jerry Martin, acting assistant district director for inspection and control for the U.S. Customs regional office in San Diego. However, Martin said Industrias de Monte Cristo was not listed among the Mexican firms importing asphalt into the United States.

In the United States, the recent revelations about firms disposing of their wastes in Mexico have prompted several agencies to begin looking at the problem. The EPA has begun a general review of its regulations governing such shipments and is checking to determine if U.S. firms shipping wastes to Mexico have followed all regulations.