The Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) has decided to impose a temporary total closure on the discharge of wastewater from Ternium Mexico in Puebla, after discovering that its waste was being dumped into the Atoyac River. The federal agency conducted an inspection in the municipality of Xoxtla, where it confirmed that the company was in violation of environmental standards, leading to the closure of its operations.
This action is part of a federal operation to clean up the three most polluted rivers in Mexico: Atoyac, Tula, and Lerma-Santiago. The closure represented a hard blow for the CEO of the company in Mexico, Máximo Vedoya, who is also the president of Caintra. Vedoya operates from Nuevo León, where Ternium's headquarters is located, which has also been pointed out for high levels of pollution in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area.
In response to the pollution accusations, both the company and the state government have diverted attention to Pemex's Cadereyta refinery. Despite this, Ternium's CEO has shown to have a close relationship with actors at all levels of government, and in Nuevo León, he has announced his participation in the Pigeca program, committing to make significant investments to reduce pollution and change regulations in this area.
In 2019, the company promised an investment of nearly 29 million dollars at its Xoxtla site for environmental matters, an investment that is now halted due to the closure caused by the detected pollution.
