The problems in the border region between the United States and Mexico are extremely multifaceted – political, economically and environmentally. The border that separates the industrialised US and the emerging nation of Mexico is crossed legally 250 million times each year. Indeed, it is one of the most heavily trafficked borders in the world. Ever since the US Congress approved measures to fortify the border in October 2006, the fences have been massively expanded and monitored. Now more than ever, they cut a straight line through environmental and ethnological structures and systems.
From my perspective as an environmental engineer, I especially want to emphasise the problems of sewage and waste disposal in the Mexican-American Tijuana River region. The river water on the Mexican side receives little treatment, and in the rainy season, transports tons of untreated waste over the border into the US where one of the country’s last, intact estuarine nature preserves is located. But this is not merely a Mexican problem. Used tyres and construction waste from the US are sold and recycled en masse in Mexico – and improperly disposed of after their use. This waste makes its way back into the United States after the next rain storm.
The professors Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman from the Department of Visual Arts and the Center on Global Justice at UCSD organised the workshop »Waste and the Reurbanization of Retrofit« for the Bordercity exchange project. One of their goals was to portray the multifaceted dimension of the situation, the problems and the personal stories of projects and possibilities on location. They also focused on such questions as: What was achieved? What are the future objectives? And what form of collaboration is possible with the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar?
The participants spent four days attending lectures and discussions with architects, artists, political studies scholars and engineers in the Structural Engineering Department at Jacobs School of Engineering. On three other days, the participants visited relevant locations on a tour of »60 Linear Miles of Transborder Conflict« in San Diego and Tijuana.
