Mexican mayors to tour environmental sites

Eight municipal presidents — the equivalent of mayors — from Wisconsin’s Mexican sister state of Jalisco arrive in Madison late Friday to begin a three-day tour of environmental management sites in southern Wisconsin.

The visitors, representing cities of 25,000 to 45,000 as well as several smaller villages, will see first-hand how their counterparts in the Badger state treat various kinds of wastewater, deal with solid waste, and restore streams to better ecological health.

Their visit comes as Mexico’s national government, headed by President Vicente Fox, begins unprecedented efforts to decentralize, giving local governments much greater authority and responsibility for environmental and natural resource management than in the past.

Tour stops Saturday, Sunday, and Monday include the Madison’s municipal recycling facility; Monona’s landfill; small wastewater treatment plants in Cross Plains, Roxbury, and Plain; and the Black Earth Creek and Kickapoo River watersheds. Also on Monday, the visitors will meet with representatives of local, county, and state governments and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where they will be honored at an reception in the Pyle Center.

The university’s Institute for Environmental Studies organized the tour via a long-standing collaboration between UW–Madison, Mexico’s University of Guadalajara, and Canada’s University of Guelph in the study and advancement of environmental stewardship.

IES director Thomas Yuill will lead the tour and serve as translator. (Most of the municipal presidents speak and understand only Spanish.) Four faculty members from the University of Guadalajara also will participate. The Mexican visitors will leave Madison early Tuesday for a similar tour in southern Ontario before they return to their own country.

For more information, including details about the itinerary, contact Tom Sinclair, IES public information manager, (608) 263-5599, tksincla@facstaff.wisc.edu.