Mexico's Newest Export to U.S. May Be Water

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Water is the most important natural resource that people need. We can do without just about everything, but water. It is necessary for life and the production of food. We can live without clothes, shelter and everything else, but we can not live without water. Now the US is setting it up to force our citizens to depend on Mexico for water. Does this smell like the North American Union? This is huge. The one life source we need and their making it dependent on Mexico. Wars have been fought over water, but our own government is putting it in Mexico's hands. Now tell me this isn't a plan in the making.

Mexico's Newest Export to U.S. May Be Water

Published October 15, 2011


SAN DIEGO-- Mexico ships televisions, cars, sugar and medical equipment to the United States. Soon, it may be sending water north.

Western U.S. states are planning two of North America's largest desalination plants in Playas de Rosarito, about 15 miles south of San Diego. They would produce 150 million gallons a day combined -- enough to supply more than 300,000 homes on both sides of the border.

It is one of the latest strategies by both countries to wean themselves from the drought-prone Colorado River.

Plans for the desalination plants have sparked concerns that American water interests are simply looking to Mexico to avoid lengthy U.S. environmental reviews and legal challenges. Backers say they say they expect the new plants will adhere to U.S. environmental standards, including water quality.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/15...#ixzz1astGPFlb

[Beverly Caterers]

Since when has their water become safe?

[Jeanfromfillmore]

More connecting Mexico with the USA.


U.S., Mexico to Expand Earthquake System
In the wake of last year's deadly magnitude-7.2 temblor the US and Mexico will extend their earthquake monitoring system south of the border, according to officials.
Last year's earthquake was felt from Los Angeles to Tijuana, killing people in Mexico, blacking out cities and forcing the evacuation of hospitals and nursing homes, along the border.
U.S. experts will provide sensors, a computer network and training to help their counterparts in northern Baja California to identify areas at greatest risk of suffering damage from a big temblor and could save lives and property, officials said.
Emergency planners were unable to determine where to send help in the early stages after the Easter Sunday 2010 quake that was centered south of Mexicali and killed two people in Mexico, said Roberto Quaas Weppen, director general of the Mexican National Center for Prevention of Disasters.
"This is something that we missed a year ago," he said during a news conference in Pasadena, Calif. "We were not able to know how strong the earthquake was" because of a lack of instruments to determine the quake's intensity and how it was spreading.
"The intensity of the groundshaking could not be measured, how strongly the ground is shaking. And this is a very important parameter to assess damage," he said.
The lack of backup systems also made it impossible to share that data when the Internet and communications went down. Under the new program, scientists from both countries will be better able to share data on earthquake hazards, officials said.
The project is an historic collaboration that will benefit both countries, said Anne Castle, assistant secretary for water and science of the U.S. Interior Department.
"It has been said that geologic faults and earthquakes don't care about borders," she said. "Human suffering and the desire to help: We don't care about borders."
Under the jointly funded project, the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Northern Command will provide new sensors that can measure strong ground motion in the earthquake-prone Mexicali and Tijuana areas. The sensors will be set in different types of soil, which plays a role in amplifying or reducing the shock of a temblor.
Mexican researchers also will be trained to quickly determine how the quake is spreading and where the damage might be expected, authorities said.
The U.S. is contributing $500,000 for the expanded quake monitoring network, which should be in operation next year. The Mexican government is including funding in its $50-million program to create an integrated national earthquake system, said Doug Given, Southern California seismic network coordinator for the USGS.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/new...#ixzz1bN7XsJqb

[Jeanfromfillmore]

More erasing our borders.


First Mexican Truck to Enter US Within Days
Days before the first Mexican carrier is set to roll into the U.S., union leaders and two California congressmen haven't given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program.
U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner said they'll take a bipartisan stand at the border Wednesday in San Diego to voice concerns about the bilateral pilot project, stalled for years by safety concerns, that will allow approved Mexican trucks to come deep into the United States.
Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, while Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California's border with Mexico.
They will join Teamsters union President James Hoffa and Todd Spencer, the owner-operator of the Independent Drivers Association, in a last-ditch effort to block Mexican trucks from being granted full access to U.S. highways.
Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver the goods rather than transfer them onto U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, the union leaders say.
Washington on Friday approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.
Transportes Olympic employees were busy Wednesday finishing the preparations for its historic, maiden trip.
The long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo.
The company was also the first approved under the 2009 pilot program before President Barack Obama's administration cancelled it. Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 99 agricultural products worth more than $2 billion annually.
Mexico cut the tariffs in half this summer after Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon approved an inspection and monitoring program for the companies that had been approved in 2009. The Mexican government has vowed to lift the rest once the truck heads out of the border zone Friday.
"We're really excited," Perez said in a telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "Now we can provide door-to-door service so it's about a 15 percent savings for companies."
Opponents say the fight isn't over.
Hunter has co-authored a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would require the pilot program to be ceased in three years and Congress to vote on the issue again.
"There's absolutely no upside to the program," said Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter's office. "It's a good example of foreign interests overtaking American interests, at the expense of jobs, security and safety. The program was a bad idea when it was created under NAFTA and it's a bad idea now. It should be stopped right away."
Criminal activity has been a problem for years even within the U.S. government's strictest trusted carrier programs. Drug trafficking organizations have smuggled tons of drugs inside trucks driven by approved truckers coming from inspected and certified facilities inside Mexico.
"The beneficiaries of opening border will be few and the casualties will be plenty," Spencer told The Associated Press on Wednesday. His organization represents small independent trucking businesses.
Proponents say especially strict safeguards are in place: The U.S. government is paying for electronic monitoring devices to be installed in all Mexican trucks used in the program.
Mexican trucking companies had to fill out an application, pay a fee and then submit the names of any drivers who will participate so they can undergo national security and criminal background checks by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.
Inspectors will check out the trucks for safety violations, verify the drivers' qualifications and administer oral English-proficiency exams.
The program's long delay has cost companies in both countries millions and hurt bilateral relations, proponents say.
"We certainly hoped that it cannot be stopped," said James Clark, director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce's Mexico Business Center. "The U.S. has been in violation of the NAFTA agreement ever since the beginning of the trucking issue. Mexican trucks have every right to come into the U.S. under NAFTA as long as the trucks are fully inspected to U.S. standards and the drivers speak English."
About 70 percent of goods from the $4 billion trade between the two nations is transported by land to its destinations according to the Mexican government.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/pol...#ixzz1bN82oGgt

[Patriotic Army Mom]

It will help the toilet paper makers. The runs from the water will help their industry and keep you toilet seat warm.

[Twoller]

I don't care about monitoring earthquakes. That's just common sense. It shouldn't be an excuse to quit policing against illegal immigration in the US or to advance legal immigration from Mexico.

But the water issue has another dimension. Water processing takes energy. Where is the energy to process for this plant going to come from?

[Rim05]

Where is the energy to process for this plant going to come from?

The US, where else?