Editorials:

Time to take a stand

The Oct. 4 blowing dust “event,” as well as winds blowing more dust on Oct. 10 from the Freeport McMoRan-owned mine has once again raised the hackles of residents.

Following Wednesday’s article about the event, one resident called to say she’d spent hours cleaning her Arizona room only to find another layer of dust from the mine an hour later. At home, she said, she’s suffering with coughing and congestion and it seems no one is watching out for us.

“Mine people are bleeding us to death. I didn’t move here to retire and suffer like this. Something needs to be done,” she said.

But in order for something to be done, residents need to speak up.

A 74-year-old man called and said the dust was so bad after the Oct. 4 dust event that it looked like someone took baking flour and threw it all over his screens and windows, patio and plants. He said he feels like a prisoner in his own home because he can’t open his windows, that the mine makes its money and doesn’t care about us.

According to a September article in U.S. News and World Report titled “Best Healthy Places to Retire: Green Valley, Arizona,” it says, “The community is literally a breath of fresh air.”

The article didn’t touch on the negative health aspects of living near a mine.

Green Valley now has a pulmonologist — a physician who specializes in diseases and disorders of the lungs. Do you wonder why?

An air quality inspector and a field engineer/compliance officer from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality were in Green Valley to check out recent reports and complaints.

They verified that the dust was blowing onto some residential property but said the complaint-filing process takes about a year and a half until a mine is fined.

The mine has been a problem for 25 years with probably another 25 years of mining to go. Small condolences to residents who have to continually breathe the mine dust, clean the outside of their homes and live behind closed windows.

Homeowners should not have to spend hours cleaning dust from the mine due to the wind. There is always strength in numbers. Your voices should be heard. If your property is covered with dust from the mine, if you live in an area affected by the mine’s blowing dust and have coughing, congestion and lung health problems, call the ADEQ at (602) 771-2215 and report it.

Consider asking officials at the mine to send a crew to clean up their mess on your property. Homeowners should not have to put themselves in harm’s way and be closer to the dust by cleaning up a mess they didn’t cause.

Mexico can’t fight escalating drug war alone

Reprinted from The San Diego Union-tribune. Distributed by Creators Syndicate Inc.

Tijuana, Mexico, is in turmoil. While no strangers to drug violence, the city’s residents are experiencing something new.

It’s called terror. The innocent are being terrorized by violence, and the toll that these acts take on tourism and cross-border commerce is incalculable.

Our neighbors say they can’t remember when the violence in the city has been so bad, public safety so precarious, and the economic situation so desperate.

One is always tempted to assume the violence is targeted, and that the casualties are limited to bad actors involved in the drug trade.

Violence is never that precise. People rightly worry about becoming victims of the collateral damage.

Every day, there is another bloody headline and more corpses left behind in new and creative ways intended to send messages from one gang to another.

On a recent Friday morning, six bodies were found in Tijuana — five in a single location.

That brought to 33 the number of bodies found in the city for the week.

Even in a bad economy, business is good for undertakers.

But for just about everyone else in Tijuana, it’s a dark and depressing time financially. Typically an economic powerhouse, the city is experiencing hard days.

Migrants from all over Mexico are still coming into the city. But, with less expectation of being able to find work in the United States, they’re trying their luck in Tijuana and not finding much work.

That is to be expected. The Mexican economy is hopelessly intertwined with the economy of the United States. When we do well, Mexico does well.

Employers hire Mexican immigrants, and those immigrants sent home more than $25 billion last year.

And now that the United States is struggling with rising unemployment and diminished consumer confidence, Mexico is suffering right along with us.

This year, with fewer immigrants working, remittances are down significantly.

As for tourism, many Americans are staying away and spending their dollars on this side of the border.

That only makes the economic situation more desperate, which leads to more violence as drug dealers fight over turf to increase profits, which makes the situation more desperate, and so it goes.

There is something else that is intertwined: the destinies of two nations that, as neighbors and friends, are more dependent upon one another than they like to admit.

Mexico’s drug war is our war, too. Not just because it is Americans’ appetite for illegal drugs that pays for the guns and the bullets, but also because the United States cannot afford to stand idly by as its neighbor lapses into chaos.

Mexican President Felipe Calder—n has waged a heroic battle against the drug cartels, but he can’t fight it alone. He needs reinforcements.

In June, under intense pressure from President Bush, Congress approved the so-called Merida Initiative, which appropriated $400 million to help Calder—n fight the cartels.

But the money has yet to be handed over.

That should happen immediately. And once the money arrives in Mexico, let’s hope some of it goes to the front lines in Tijuana.

Until then, the chaos will continue at great cost to all concerned.