When thinking about the opioid crisis in North America, it's easy to think solely about the human cost. But as one recent investigation found, there's an extreme environmental cost to the opioid crisis — and it seems nobody is doing anything about it.
Mexico's Quinto Elemento Lab investigated the environmental toll of several clandestine drug manufacturing labs, El País reported.
The key takeaway was that, even after the labs are discovered and dismantled, the staggering amounts of chemicals and toxins there are disposed of improperly, if at all.
These labs "are dumping tons of toxic chemicals into Mexico's most fragile ecosystems," El País reported. "It's a narco-made ecological catastrophe."
"They carry acids and they are very dangerous; if you spill them on a plant, the plant won't survive for long, it will dry up," environmentalist Mauro Aguirre Zazueta said, per the report.
In other areas, livestock and wildlife have been found dead near contaminated water wells — many of which also service nearby human residents. These labs are using synthetically manufactured chemical components that, El País explains, can cause "everything from temporary disabilities to death, depending on exposure."
"That product penetrates the layers of the subsoil, and when it rains, there is a certain runoff," general Porfirio Fuentes Vélez told El País. "Logically, rainwater that falls there will go into ravines, into the natural drainage of the terrain, and that undoubtedly contaminates the aquifers."
But Quinto's investigation found that the responsible Mexican authorities have not intervened in a single contamination case. In many cases, it seems that nobody knows who, or which group, would even be responsible for such a thing.
Unfortunately, processes and oversight for safe disposal of these highly dangerous chemicals remain completely nonexistent. According to El País, Mexican officials could not even provide evidence that they train first responders they are sending to the labs.
"It is unavoidable to see the tremendous impact that organized crime has had on the environment," said Siria Gastélum, of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. "It scares all of us. … But it's unthinkable to do nothing and let everything burn."
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