Mar 09, 2006. /Lesprom Network/. Since late last year, Argentine protesters have blocked bridges into eastern neighbor Uruguay, claiming that two new foreign-operated pulp mills going up on the other side of a border river will create heavy pollution and vile odors, Dow Jones reported. But in an apparent case of what-goes-around-comes-around, Paraguayan officials now want an aging Argentine pulp plant on the shared Parana River to temporarily shut down on concerns about raw waste the mill has been dumping at Paraguay's doorstep for decades. Paraguayan Environmental Minister Alfredo Molinas recommended late Tuesday that his government ask Argentine officials to "temporarily close the paper mills operating in Puerto Piray (Missiones Province) until they have waste water treatment facilities," Paraguay's Environmental Secretariat said in a statement released Wednesday. Another acceptable option would be for the Argentine pulp operations to build a reservoir to contain waste water until a treatment plant can be installed, the secretariat said. Puerto Piray, situated on Argentina's northeastern border with Paraguay about 60 miles downstream from the world-famous Iguazu Falls, has been home to the paper mill since the 1940s, according to the municipality's website. Angel Ciullo, a spokesman for Paraguay's Environmental Secretariat said the timing of the petition is unrelated to the Uruguay-Argentine spat, however. "We want a technical solution, not a political or conflictive one," Ciullo told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Asuncion. "The plant has generated income for more than 30 years, and now it's time to take care of the environment," he said. "We need to solve this now, but not with roadblocks." Pulp mill friction could, however, become a banner for Uruguay and Paraguay leaders to muster domestic support among political opponents for bilateral accords with the U.S. - trade agreements that would sound a death knell for the region's top trade bloc, Mercosur. Uruguayan and Paraguayan leaders in recent months have suggested seeking bilateral free trade agreements with the U.S. amid growing dissatisfaction with Argentine and Brazilian domination over the four-nation Mercosur bloc. "The regional free trade market is a utopia because the ideal of tapping the 200 million consumers in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay remains but a good intention due to Argentine and Brazilian trade barriers," Paraguay's Industrial Union president Guillermo Stanley said last month after meeting with government officials in Asuncion. "We are disappointed with Mercosur ... No European, Asian, or North American investor is going to come to Paraguay to produce because they know that you can't export to Brazil of Argentina," Stanley added. That jibe came after Paraguayan Vice President Luis Castiglioni told Argentine newspaper Clarin in September that his nation was seeking a free-trade deal with the U.S. - a claim Foreign Minister Leila Rachid later played down. Meanwhile, Uruguay's Finance Minister Danilo Astori said in a magazine interview in January that his country wants a U.S. free trade deal "as soon as possible," adding that he believes a U.S. deal is the best way for the left to create jobs at home. A day later, Foreign Minister Reinaldo Gargano, an Astori rival within President Tabare Vazquez's leftist coalition government, flatly denied such a goal. Uruguayan Industry Minister Jorge Lepra has repeatedly expressed his support for Astori's position, however. Most recently, Lepra told Spanish news service EFE in Miami Friday that preliminary U.S.-Uruguayan free trade talks are expected to begin by month's end. Uruguayan political opponents have pulled together in their rejection of the roadblocks set up by Argentine activists protesting the pulp mill construction. Argentine protesters began blocking bridges into Uruguay at the onset of the South American summer vacation season in late December. The Uruguayan coast is a popular destination for Argentine summer travelers, and the blockades rained on the smaller nation's tourism sector. The roadblocks have also stopped cargo trucks from Chile hauling building supplies to the pulp mill sites. It remains to be seen if the drawn out confrontation has been enough to bring Uruguay's rival political elements together to open the door for a U.S. trade deal.