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US-MEXICO: MOUNTAIN OF TIRES FUELS FEARS OF FIRE

by Joel Millman, Wall Street Journal

MEXICALI, Mexico, 17 May 1999 -- A "mountain" of tires is growing in Mexicali, Mexico, and health and environmental officials fear a fire in the tire pile could be a "devastating event."

Mexicali, a city on the US-Mexican border, is rapidly becoming the "used-tire capital of North America." Over a million tires are imported by Mexico for retreading each year, according to a California state agency, "far more than the import quota." About five million unusable tires now litter Mexicali, most in a pile west of the city.

"We still don't know how many tires have accumulated here," says Moises Rivas, an instructor at the Autonomous U. of Baja California who is counting the tires on the mesa, assisted by the US EPA and California environmental officials. A unit of the North American Free Trade Agreement could fund a cleanup, but will finance only revenue-generating programs, and NAFTA officials say they haven't seen a tire recycling program that "makes economic sense."

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