Mexican Officials Fail to Notify U.S. of Gas Leak at Mexicali Plant

Federal environmental officials said Thursday that Mexican officials failed to notify them of a hydrochloric gas leak at a Mexicali chemical plant Sunday that sent as many as 43 people to the hospital and forced the evacuation of about 10,000 people.

Despite a 3-year-old accord under which U.S and Mexican authorities agreed to notify each other promptly of environmental incidents at the border, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokesman said the EPA did not learn of the Sunday night incident until two days after it occurred at the Quimica Organica de Mexico plant.

And that notification came from an unidentified non-governmental source instead of the EPA’s counterpart agency in Mexico, SEDUE (the Spanish acronym for Secretariat for Urban Devel opment and Ecology), the spokesman said.

“There has been no official communication,” said EPA spokesman David Schmidt, who is based in San Francisco. “We are concerned that the Mexican government did not make that notification. . . . We would characterize it as a serious incident because it did involve an evacuation and did involve some people being injured off the site.”

The incident and the EPA’s publicly expressed concern about the lack of notification, take on particular significance because border environmental hazards are a key issue in discussions of the proposed free trade pact between the two countries.

EPA administrators plan to discuss the case with SEDUE representatives, who reportedly have ordered the shutdown of the plant. SEDUE administrators in Mexicali and Tijuana could not be reached for comment Thursday.

According to various accounts, the chemical-gas release occurred about 8 p.m. Sunday as a result of a leak in a tank of hydrochloric acid. The plant, about 6 miles from the border, manufactures pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.

The leak sent a cloud of hydrochloric gas over adjacent neighborhoods, causing the evacuation by police and firefighters of 10,000 residents, according to Mexican environmental activists and a city spokesman.

The situation was declared under control within an hour, city officials said. Most of the 43 injuries were minor, mainly children and young people complaining of nausea and headaches, said city spokesman Arturo Galvan.

However, there was conflicting information Thursday on the injuries. A Mexicali environmental activist said three people remain hospitalized, an account Galvan disputed. The EPA was informed of 30 injuries, Schmidt said.

The Mexicali activist, Fernando Medina of the Civic Ecological Disclosure Committee, said local emergency authorities responded quickly and effectively in the old, congested neighborhoods that were affected.

“It was handled well,” he said. “Some of these neighborhoods have rapid access to main streets but others do not, so there was a lot of panic among the people. . . . And now people are very angry.”

After angry protests by neighbors at Quimica Organica this week, SEDUE has ordered the shutdown of all chemical operations at the plant, Galvan said. The number of employees there fluctuates between 250 and 500, he said.

“The decision was made Tuesday,” he said. “Now there are negotiations about whether the plant might be relocated or closed completely.”

A joint contingency plan established in January, 1988, between the United States and Mexico calls for environmental agencies to inform their counterparts promptly of any serious environmental hazard or incident within 60 miles of the border, Schmidt said.

The EPA and SEDUE have both emphasized the need for working closely together, and EPA administrator William K. Reilly and SEDUE head Patricio Chirinos have joint news conference scheduled for Friday to discuss border issues. The news conference is unrelated to Sunday’s accident.

Schmidt said he did not know if the two men would discuss the chemical plant incident.