International Environment

Although the United States and Mexico have committed up to $3 billion each in loans and loan guarantees to fund water, municipal sewage, and other environmental infrastructure projects along the U.S.-Mexican border, Mexican border towns and U.S. rural areas known as "colonias" face financial and administrative challenges to meeting their environmental infrastructure needs. The problem is particularly severe in many Mexican communities, where infrastructure systems are often inadequate or nonexistent. Most environmental needs on the U.S. side involve colonias--rural, unincorporated subdivisions characterized by substandard housing, poor roads and drainage, and inadequate water and sewer facilities--or upgrades of existing community infrastructure. This report discusses the (1) financial and institutional challenges the United States and Mexico face in overcoming environmental infrastructure problems and (2) way in which the Environmental Protection Agency has identified and prioritized funding for environmental problems along the border.

GAO found that: (1) many environmental infrastructure needs remain unmet on both sides of the border; (2) these needs are particularly acute on the Mexican side of the border, where the basic infrastructure is ill equipped to handle sewage collection, wastewater treatment, and solid waste disposal; (3) some Mexican communities need to expand the capacity of their infrastructure to meet ever-increasing population demands and industrial growth; (4) the Mexican border region has the capacity to treat 34 percent of its wastewater; (5) the border communities in Texas have the capacity to meet their solid waste disposal needs for at least 10 years; (6) EPA has spent approximately $520 million to help address pollution problems along the U.S.-Mexican border, but it has not developed agencywide criteria to ensure that its resources target the region's highest-priority needs; (7) communities on both sides of the border lack experience in planning public works projects, as well as the financial capacity to fund these projects; (8) the North American Development Bank provides financing for environmental infrastructure projects by securing equity, grants, and other sources of funding on a project-by-project basis; and (9) the Border XXI Program provides information on how to improve environmental conditions along the U.S.-Mexican border, develop environmental indicators, expand public participation, and address environmental health concerns.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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