Project Summary (1995-2000)

This core is comprised of two projects: outreach to community and outreach to industry. Both are concerned with addressing environmental problems along the US-Mexico border.

With the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a great deal of national attention has been directed to problems in environmental health and environmental quality at the US-Mexico border. The development and training of Mexican environmental toxicologists would address a serious shortage of these professionals that is hampering Mexico's ability to deal with pressing environmental health issues. Outreach efforts are extending the research and teaching efforts of the Arizona Superfund Basic Research Program to Mexico by jointly sponsoring conferences/meetings, encouraging the development of environmental toxicology degree programs, research centers and expertise at universities/research institutes in Mexico, recruiting graduate students and faculty from Mexico, and developing a directory of persons conducting studies on environmental health and environmental quality in the border region.

Outreach to Industry is part of a larger outreach effort initiated by the Governor of Arizona to stimulate industrial development in Arizona. The proposal is to create a cooperative working relationship between members of the Environmental Technology Industry Committee (ETIC), a private industry association, who are interested in hazardous waste risk assessment and remediation with members of the University of Arizona Hazardous Waste Basic Research Program; and to focus this interaction on addressing environmental problem along the US-Mexico border.