ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDY

Any Company who wishes to start their operations in Mexico, needs to undertake an environmental impact study, before they start the construction of the building or even if they are going to lease it, without having to build. This is for complying with Mexican legal requirements.

When the NAFTA agreement was signed between Canada, Mexico and the United States of America, one of the more controversial issues was precisely that of environmental rules and regulations, and how to ensure that all three countries would be able to control industrial waste disposal, emissions, and other environmental impacts caused by industrial growth and development. During the years preceding the agreement, our three countries passed several laws, rules, regulations, and standards, so as to be able to deal efficiently and adequately with the environmental problems each of them faced.

In the case of Mexico, the main body environmental legislation is the "Ley General del Equilibrio Ecológico y la Protección al Ambiente" (General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection), passed by the Federal Government on January 28, 1988, and reformed last year (publicized in the Federation's Official Diary, December 13, 1996).

As established by this law in its Section V, Articles 28, 29 and 32; all industrial development projects must be subjected to an environmental impact study process before their operation can be authorized by the competent authorities, State and Municipal laws, rules and regulations establish similar provisions. Emanated from the General Law, there is a regulation's manual called "Reglamento de la Ley General del Equilibrio Ecológico y la Protección al Ambiente en Materia de Impacto Ambiental", Which deals specifically with environmental impact studies procedures.

This manual establishes that an environmental impact study must contain at least the following information:

1. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMPANY
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIFIC PLANT TO BE INSTALLED from the stage of site selection for the construction of the plant; the required area of land, specifications of the building and equipment, operation programs (including the characteristics of the processes, expected production volumes, investments needed, etc.).

   This section must provide accurate information about the type and amounts of natural resources to be exploited, and a waste management program; both during the building and the operation stages.

   Finally it should include an abandonment program for the company plant or its activities.

3. GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURES:
   1. Physical characteristics: Climate, Geology, Hydrology, etc.
   2. Biological features: Vegetation, Wildlife, Ecosystems and landscape, etc.

4. GENERAL SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES:

   An analysis of the changes in social and economic conditions (employment, services, social security, education) that the installation and operation of this plant will bring.

5. ENTAILMENT BETWEEN THE NEW PLANT AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL

   In this chapter, all official documents, plans and programs that might be related to the activity under study must be analyzed.

   This analysis includes, besides several federal, state and municipal laws and regulations, all pertinent official documents in Ecological Planning, Urban Development Director Plans, Official Environmental Programs, Degrees concerning Protected Areas, ecological criteria for the protection of plants and wildlife, for the rational use of natural resources, for environmental protection, etc. and organize them in a coherent body of information useful for any new plant in order to ensure the compliance with the law.

6. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT IDENTIFICATION

   This chapter must identify and clearly describe the impacts that the operation of the new plant might cause on the different elements of both the biological and the human environment where it takes place, and during its different stages (preparation, operation and the eventual termination).

7. PREVENTION AND MITIGATION MEASURES FOR IDENTIFIED IMPACTS

   This is without doubt the most important chapter of the study, as the authorities approval of the projected activity depends on its quality. This chapter most propose the measures that, being congruent with the technical and financial capacity of the new plant, will aim at preventing and abating all possible impacts caused by the activity during its different stages, upon the several components of the environment where it takes place and in strict compliance with the law.