Mexico City, July 17 (teleSUR-RHC)-- In the central state of Tlaxcala, the Federal Attorney of Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) announced that 18 companies had been temporarily shut down for illegally discharging industrial waste into the Atoyac River.

“From February 3rd to June 30th ... the attorney carried out 70 inspections in total regarding the management of dangerous residue; out of them, a total of 18 have been temporarily shut down; we observed [environmental violations] in 26 companies,” said PROFEPA representative in Tlaxcala Jaime Rodríguez.

Local residents have observed that the smell of contaminants was stronger in the morning and at night, reported Televisa. They also avoid the consumption of local products that are irrigated with river water.

The PROFEPA will inspect 80 more companies out of the total 3,675 located in the area, said Rodriguez. By the end of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s term, inspections should be complete. Earlier in February, 11 of them had been suspended – all of them belonging to the textile industry, reported El Excelsior.

In May, over 3,000 fish and 50 cattle heads unexpectedly died in the region, allegedly because of the water contamination. In 2010, experts from various universities had already revealed that the industrial waste discharged into the river caused a high incidence rate of cancers in the region.