The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting public comments on the draft of a new border environment plan. Titled “Border 2020: U.S.-Mexico Environmental Program,” the document is a framework for a new environmental protection and improvement plan designed to succeed the Border 2012 collaboration between Mexico and the US.

    “As home to over 14 million people and one of the busiest cross-border trade regions in the world, protecting human health and the environment in the Border Region is essential to ensuring that the U.S. continues to be safe, healthy and economically productive,” the EPA said in a statement.

    Public comment on the Border 2010 plan will be accepted through November 30. So far, public meetings have been scheduled for September 28 at the Holiday Inn Express in Nogales, Arizona, and for October 5 in the city council chambers of Calexico, California.

    For the EPA, Border 2020 represents “the latest multi-year, bi-national planning effort to be implemented under the La Paz Agreement” on environmental cooperation signed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Miguel de la Madrid back in 1983. According to the environmental protection agency, the draft for Border 2020 was the result of a process involving the EPA and its Mexican counterpart SEMARNAT, indigenous communities and tribes from the two nations and environment departments from the 10 Mexican and US border states.

    For more information on Border 2020, readers can go to: http://www.epa.gov/border2012