Word: ciudad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Around the fringe of the dusty, sprawling Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez (pop. 625,000) rise row after row of corrugated-steel and beige brick structures bearing the logos of RCA, General Electric and GTE. Inside a Honeywell building, hundreds of women wearing red smocks hunch over an assembly line as they put together tiny electronic devices. Ten million parts a month are turned out here and then trucked across the border to U.S. plants, which ship them off to be used in Apple computers, Xerox copiers and instrument panels for the space shuttle...
...area of hazard grew even wider as radioactive scrap from the junkyard was transported to two Mexican foundries, one in Ciudad Juárez, the other 220 miles south in Chihuahua. According to José Antonio Rotonda of the Mexican Nuclear Commission, radioactive pellets that had adhered to scraps in the truck fell off en route to Chihuahua, and eight pockets of contamination have been discovered between the two cities...
...Ciudad Juárez foundry, the scrap was turned into table pedestals that were shipped across the border but later tracked down. U.S. officials say they are almost certain that all of the contaminated legs were returned to Mexico. In Chihuahua, the junkyard material was converted into steel reinforcing rods, and according to Mexican officials, about 500 tons of this hot steel were shipped to the U.S. The rods were used in the construction of at least two houses near Farmington, N. Mex., and the owners had to replace their radioactive foundations. An additional 3,500 tons of steel remained...
Many of the residents of Ciudad Juárez are both bewildered and resentful. Some citizens do not understand what radiation is. Notes Sotelo's wife Alicia: "Down at the laundry, people asked the owner to keep me from going in. They thought I had some sort of contagious disease." To complicate matters, Mexican authorities have been reluctant to tell those who may have been exposed to radiation what the consequences might be. Says Sotelo: "They've said it could have long-term effects, but they haven't said what those effects...
Roberto Trevino, the technical secretary of Mexico's National Nuclear Safety and Safeguards Commission, stresses that "there is no danger now." Nonetheless, two technicians are still searching for radioactive material on the Chihuahua-Ciudad Juárez highway, and the U.S. Department of Energy has conducted an airborne scan of the contaminated areas. The accident is a symptom of a larger problem, insists Antonio Ponce, a representative of Mexico's Nuclear Workers Union. He charges that the nuclear commission has been lax in cracking down on firms that handle radioactive material carelessly. Responds Trevino: "Their accusations are unfounded...