TRANSBOUNDARY WATER-RESOURCES AND PUBLIC-HEALTH IN THE UNITED-STATES-MEXICO BORDER REGION

The ''Ambos Nogales Water Project'' represents an interdisciplinary st udy of water management policy in a community straddling the U.S.-Mexi co border. The project was a joint effort undertaken from 1989 through 1993 by the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the Universi ty of Arizona and El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) in Nogales, Sonora. Funding was provided by the Ford Foundation. Three key water m anagement issues were the research focus: quantity (water supply), sew erage (water and waste removal), and quality. All three have inseparab le linkages with public health. Regarding quantity, the study revealed that entire neighborhoods, especially in Nogales, Sonora, are unsuppl ied or undersupplied with running water, suggesting negative implicati ons for the health of residents on both sides of the border. Sewerage systems do not reach many neighborhoods in Nogales, Sonora. Even sewer ed areas are problematic due to breaks in poorly maintained systems, r esulting in leaks to the aquifer and threates to groundwater quality. A pilot, water sample survey to assess water quality of area wells rev ealed significant bacteriologic contamination due to wastewater, eleva ted nitrate levels, and detectable concentrations of volatile organic compounds, all of which have potentially deleterious health effects. T he project database offers an opportunity to analyze environment-relat ed health problems in Ambos Nogales. The authors were not involved in the primary water resources research or sampling surveys that are the background of this essay. They have employed the data generated to dis cuss previously unaddressed public health aspects of the work and revi ewed some of the project's implications within the larger context of r esearch on U.S.-Mexico border environmental health. The project itself contributes a model for cooperative, transboundary research on an imp ortant set of factors affecting public health. Project outputs are par ticularly valuable given that the newly created North American Develop ment Bank (NADBank) and its sister institution, the Border Environment al Cooperation Commission (BECC), have identified water-related proble ms as their initial priority to improve quality of life in the border region.