Mexico will not pay for oil spill

Press, 3 October 1979, Page 9

Mexico will not pay for oil spill

NZPA-Reuter Mexico City: I !i President Jose Lopez Por-]< tillo has said Mexico will noth pay for damage to Texas |1 beaches contaminated by an]I oil spill from the runaway}] Ixtoc 1 oil well in the Gulf}; of Mexico. “I told the government of! the United States — and lii tell the people of Mexico — ;

face to face, that if the; United States Government did not pay for damage to the Mexicali Vai|ley (caused by salt water • from the Colorado River), Mexico will not pay for damage in the Gulf of Mexico,” :Mr Lopez Portillo said. The Mexican President; .spoke to a crowd estimated at 100,000 greeting him in

iMexico City on his return from a trip last week to Washington for talks with President Carter and to New York for an address at the Un'ted Nations. He was keynote speaker earlier yesterday at ceremonies marking the transfer of jthe Panama Canal Zone from lUnited States to Panamanian 'control. Saline water from the Colorado River caused salt beds to form in the Mexicali Valley years ago, rendering crop lands in northern Mexico vir-

tually useless. In 1972. the then President, Luis Echeverria, told a joint session of [Congress in Washington that I the issue was the most dedicate bilateral problem in [United States-Mexico relations. I Mr Lopez Portillo said during his meetings with Presifdent Carter he had discussed] i a future agreement on the en-I jvironment which would be' (binding on both countries. | “The future yes, the past; |no,” President Lopez Portilloj Isaid in his 25-minute speech.!