The Gray Side of Green Growth: Environmental Regulation and the Industrial Pollution of the Santiago River

Abstract

McCulligh examines environmental regulation in the case of industrial pollution in the Santiago River, whose trajectory from Lake Chapala to the outskirts of the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara has become an open sewer for one of the most important industrial corridors in the country. McCulligh observes that, even though environmental legislation has been strengthened in the neoliberal era, and even though governmental agencies place much emphasis on environmental matters in official discourse, this has not led to control of water pollution in the Santiago River. Her research explores how environmental laws and standards are designed and applied in Mexico to ensure the predominance of private sector interests, reflecting the overriding priority to create favorable conditions to attract and retain foreign direct investment. In a carefully documented analysis of the standards for effluent quality and the inspection of wastewater discharges, she demonstrates that there is no real government control over industrial pollution in the Santiago River, and she debunks the myth that transnational corporations are self-regulating and that they comply with their own standards, which are supposedly higher than those required by Mexican law.