By Kent Paterson
Everyone’s eyes are on November 5. Still, democracy is far more than just casting votes for the next elected official or bond measure before retiring to your coach or the social media screen until the next election rolls around. A vibrant democracy means everyday citizens engaged in the issues that affect their lives, and ensuring that community voices and concerns are respected. In the Paso del Norte, an opportunity currently exists for such an engagement.
We’re talking about the public comment process that will help decide the future of commercial truck traffic on the Bridge of the Americas that spans El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. At stake is whether a public investment of about $700 million for the redo of the bridge’s customs port will include or exclude the commercial truck traffic currently serving Juárez manufacturing plants. Increasingly drawing the ire of local residents, the trucks cross over the bridge adjacent to the Chamizal and other El Paso neighborhoods before delivering products destined for U.S. consumption.
No tolls are charged on the Bridge of Americas, hence the local name of the “Free Bridge.” According to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), “As a result, the volume of traffic is heavy with many travelers and commercial vehicles choosing to enter and exit through this facility in lieu of paying a toll.”
Capping a process required by the National Environmental Policy Act, the GSA has issued a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the bridge’s customs port modernization. Applauded by many El Pasoans, the federal agency has selected a preferred construction alternative of no future cargo traffic on the bridge.
The lead agency in a modernization project financed by the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the GSA will accept written public comments for a final EIS until November 4. Subsequently, the final EIS will be published and a decision announced in a Record of Decision.
The environmental process follows years of protesting, lobbying and organizing by Familias Unidas de Chamizal, La Mujer Obrera, the Sierra Club, the Community First Coalition and others who want diesel emitting semis removed from bridge traffic. More recently, the El Paso City Council, Mayor Oscar Leeser, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar and the El Paso County Commissioners Court voiced support for the removal of the trucks.
If the trucks are ultimately deemed history, it’s expected that maquiladora cargo will be rerouted through the ports of entry at San Jerónimo-Santa Teresa on the New Mexico border and at Guadalupe-Tornillo in the lower valley of El Paso County.
For Familias Unidas, public health and environmental justice are at stake in the Bridge of the Americas matter. Overwhelmingly inhabited by low-income Chicano and Mexican residents, the Chamizal and nearby neighborhoods are routinely subjected to toxic fumes and noise from passing semis. On top of this, the communities and their children are affected by pollution from other multiple sources.
A 2023 executive order by President Joe Biden directed federal agencies to take into account “measures to address and prevent disproportionate and adverse environmental and health impacts on communities, including the cumulative impacts of pollution and other burdens like climate change.”
In a message on behalf of Familias Unidas del Chamizal, longtime El Paso community activist Cemelli de Aztlan called the present stage of the Bridge of Americas’ struggle a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redeem years of inaction.” She continued:
“The GSA’s selection of Viable Action Alternative #4 eliminates all commercial cargo operations on the Bridge of the Americas (BOTA). This is the only feasible alternative that fulfills the purpose and needs of the BOTA Modernization while reducing dangerous air pollution and harm to environmental justice communities. Viable Action Alternative #4 is not only the most cost-effective alternative, but the only alternative that promotes Environmental Justice…”
Commercial interests opposed to eliminating the semi traffic on the Bridge of the Americas are likewise busy organizing. Mostly based in Ciudad Juárez and representing the maquiladora industry, they argue that the GSA’S chosen alternative was a unilateral one taken without consulting the United States’ Mexican partners in the US-Canada-Mexico Agreement (aka NAFTA 2.0), that the disappearance of a convenient bridge crossing in the center of the El Paso-Juárez borderplex would spell chaos for Juárez roadways which presently are not prepared to handle an additional traffic flow to the other ports of entry, and that rerouting the product delivery stream outside the urban core means higher costs for business, to the estimated tune of $120-$180 per vehicle.
Quoted in El Diario de Juárez, Isela Molina, president of Juárez’s Business Coordinating Council, said her organization had delivered a letter to the GSA signed by the Mexican city’s business associations expressing their inconformity with the GSA’S preferred no commercial truck traffic alternative.
“We are going to meet this week, because as a border, it is important that both cities are taken into consideration,” Molina said.
The business leader added that the letter also will be sent to Mexican Chancellor Juan Ramón de la Fuente and Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. Both men recently entered office with the new administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum.
What do you think? To paraphrase the Clash: should the truck traffic stay or go from the Bridge of the Americas? You have an opportunity to voice your opinion and cast your vote, so to speak, either by email or snail mail. Again, the deadline is Monday, November 4. Electronic comments should be sent to:
BOTA.nepacomments@gsa.gov
Your comment must include “BOTA LPOE Draft EIS” in the subject line.
If you prefer the U.S. Postal Service, dispatch your two cents to:
U.S. General Services Administration
Attention: Karla Carmichael, NEPA Program Manager
819 Taylor St, Room 12-B
Fort Worth, TX 76102
For earlier stories in El Chuqueño about the Bridge of the Americas controversy check out: