Highway to hell? CANAMEX, Loop 202, and the Tar Sands

Infrastructural projects such as highways, mines, pipelines, etc., are detrimental to the environment and health, and often lead to displacement, with disproportionately damaging effects on indigenous people. 

 

This is what connects Arizona’s proposed Loop 202 Extension, aka South Mountain Freeway, with the Tar Sands (or Oil Sands) in Alberta, Canada.  The Loop 202 Extension, an 8-lane freeway, would displace residents in the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) and elsewhere, and affects South Mountain, a sacred site.  It would also bring more traffic and pollution to the area.  In much the same way, the Tar Sands and the associated infrastructure such as the Keystone XL Pipeline that is getting so much press lately due to so many protesters (of which hundreds have been arrested^[i]) brings the same kinds of ill effects, though worse.  To top it off, the Loop 202 is part of the Sun Corridor, a “megapolitan” or “mega-region” connecting Tucson and Phoenix (and perhaps Prescott and Nogales, AZ). And this happens to be part of the CANAMEX Corridor^[ii], which links Alberta, Canada (where the Tar Sands are) with Guaymas (and/or Punta Colonet) in Mexico, running through Arizona and four other states of the U.S.  The Sun Corridor and CANAMEX already exist, utilizing existing freeways and rails, though they will not be considered completed without growth, expansion, and development--unless it’s stopped.

Whereas the Keystone XL Pipeline is actual piping that would carry the tar-sands bitumen from the Tar Sands through the U.S. to Texas, the CANAMEX Corridor (not to be confused with companies with the name Canamex) is a transportation route facilitating international trade.  Alberta claims to have initiated CANAMEX in the early 1990’s^[iii] likely due in much part to the fact that U.S. businesses supply equipment, parts, and services for their Tar Sands projects.”^[iv]  We can assume that some of these items also come from Mexico and/or Asia, whom as we know, pay much lower wages, which has meant outsourcing of U.S. jobs. More significantly, the Arizona-Mexico Commission also claims credit for CANAMEX.^[v] They discuss how the CANAMEX Corridor serves to facilitate the trade laid out by NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), but trade with Asia has also been emphasized.^[vi]  You may have heard of “NAFTA Superhighways” as part of a conspiracy theory in the interest of a North American Union with a central government, but these NAFTA trade corridors are not theories, but are discussed, if quietly, by official state institutions.^[vii]  For example, CANAMEX is listed as a Program on the ADOT (Arizona Department of Transportation) Systems and Regional Planning website^[viii] and promoted in a recent edition of the Maricopa Association of Government’s (MAG) newsletter.^[ix]

 

Is the Loop 202 Extension part of the CANAMEX Corridor?  

To be accurate, the Loop 202 Extension/South Mountain Freeway has been in the works for longer than CANAMEX, and ADOT insists that it is not part of CANAMEX.^[x]  However, at this point, it is highly likely that any freeway development within the Sun Corridor is meant to facilitate international trade.  ADOT claims, “the CANAMEX corridor in Maricopa County takes trucks from I-10 south of the Valley across I-8 to State Route 85, avoiding the metro-Phoenix area.”  This information, however, doesn’t match other details on CANAMEX’s route through Arizona.

Although over time, the routes included in maps of the CANAMEX Corridor have changed slightly, ADOT’s information has to do with the route they recommended in a Resolution in 2001.^[xi]  Back then, there had been no good news for at least seven years that funding would be available for the Loop 202 extension.^[xii]  At this point their information seems especially, and perhaps intentionally, out-of-date.  For example, these routes would bring CANAMEX outside of the Sun Corridor area, whereas the Sun Corridor is said to be part of CANAMEX.^[xiii]  According to the CANAMEX wikipedia page there are discrepancies about the route, but none of it mentions I-8 nor Route 85. “The official designation in Arizona is Interstate 10 to U.S. Route 93 at Phoenix. However, US 93 does not enter Phoenix or connect with I-10. US 93 currently terminates at Wickenburg northwest of Phoenix. To make this connection currently requires driving U.S. Route 60, a surface street through the western suburbs of Phoenix not compliant with the standards established by the treaty.

 

The chosen alternative for resolution will complete a compliant connection between Wickenburg and Phoenix via an upgrade and extension to Arizona State Route 303