(Esta
página en Español. / This page in Spanish.)
The TCEQ has offices in Harlingen, Laredo, and El Paso that
focus on local environmental issues within their coverage areas
(see a list of all
regional offices).
The TCEQ’s Border Affairs unit in the Intergovernmental
Relations Division supports those regional offices and, because
environmental causes and effects cross international borders, that
unit also communicates and develops programs with Mexican state and
federal officials, and the U.S. EPA and other U.S. border states.
To contact Border Affairs, send an e-mail to ba@tceq.state.tx.us or call
512/239-3600.
Formal, collaborative binational and state-to-state programs
analyze and address environmental issues in the border region. This
page explains how the border region is defined internationally,
what it includes in Texas, and where you can obtain additional
information on issues and programs.
The U.S.-Mexico border region, as defined under the
La Paz Agreement,
is the area 100 kilometers (62.5 miles) on
either side of the 3,200 km (2,000 mile) boundary between the two
countries, from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. It
includes portions of four U.S. states and six Mexican states.
The Texas portion of the U.S.-Mexico border region, which
comprises more than half of the entire binational border, is
defined by the long stretch of the Rio Grande that extends from the
sister cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez in the west to
the Gulf of Mexico, near the sister cities of Brownsville and
Matamoros (see map).
Four Mexican states–Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo
León, and Tamaulipas–are located across the Rio Grande
from Texas. This Texas-Mexico border region is characterized by
great natural beauty and a variety of ecosystems, but burgeoning
population and economic growth have put stress on various
resources, including air and water. The local communities, with
help from state and national governments, are having some success
in addressing those stresses.
A significant portion of the economic growth is fueled by
international trade, but on the Texas side that trade has not
lifted the region from relatively high levels of poverty. Some of
the border counties are among the poorest counties in the United
States.
In the border region, as in all of Texas, the TCEQ regulates
activities related to water quality, air quality, and waste, and
offers selected programs aimed at pollution prevention. As an
important part of its efforts in this region, the agency also
cooperates closely with the EPA and Mexican counterparts in a
formal binational environmental program called Border 2012. Visit
the EPA web site for more information on Border 2012.
For a detailed overview of issues related to air, water, and
waste in this region from the Texas perspective, read the State of the Rio Grande and
the Environment of the Border Region, published in 2002 as
Volume 3 of the agency’s Strategic Plan for that year.
As an example of cross-border cooperation, the TCEQ signed a Texas-Nuevo León
Strategic Environmental Plan in July 2005.
