Beach visitors on the Argentina side enjoy a splash in the Río Uruguay against a backdrop of the Botnia pulp mill on the Uruguayan side.

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GUALEGUAYCHÚ, ARGENTINA — Three hours north of Buenos Aires, the shallow Río Uruguay meanders past the towns of Fray Bentos, Uruguay and Gualeguaychú, Argentina.

The two border towns are deeply connected. Families live on both sides, and brisk traffic normally flows between the two countries. But now, no vehicles cross the San Martín International Bridge that spans the river. On each bank, the port of entry stands silent and empty.

On April 25, 2005, 50,000 Gualeguaychú citizens — more than half the town's population — converged on the bridge, shouting that the paper mill across the river had to go. Ever since, they have blocked this major link between Argentina and Uruguay.

They are protesting Botnia, a Finnish pulp mill recently built near Fray Bentos, their Uruguayan neighbor. The plant processes groves of exotic eucalyptus trees, partly owned by Botnia, into paper paste. The bleached pulp, or cellulose fiber, is exported to Europe and China to be turned into paper.

Their struggle has gone far beyond a local movement: It has pitted two neighboring nations against each other over the question of whether one country has the right to pollute a shared environment.

Last year, protesters' numbers swelled to 125,000, as many from across Argentina joined them — so many that the bridge began to vibrate under their combined weight. A yellow line now marks where the bridge's structural integrity will be dangerously compromised if the unwavering activists cross it.

Residents of Gualeguaychú are convinced that the plant will leave; the word "if" is not in their vocabulary. "Botnia will go," they echo.

Across the bridge, deserted streets and vacant storefronts in Fray Bentos, population 30,000, indicate that the tranquil town has seen happier times. Once known for a corned-beef cannery whose success peaked during World War II, in recent years Fray Bentos relied largely on tourism from Argentina.

The arrival of the pulp mill promised economic renewal.

In 2005, the paper conglomerate Botnia, whose other five plants are in Finland, received approval from the Uruguayan government to begin construction. Funded by a $170 million loan from the World Bank, the total $1.1 billion investment is the largest in Uruguay's history.

Now, the slate gray factory and its 360-foot smokestack, loom over the blue-green landscape. It is the most imposing feature on the horizon.

Before the plant was built, two environmental and socioeconomic impact assessments — both funded by Botnia — concluded that there would be minimal negative effects on the region.

The Argentines disagree.

"The cellulose plant goes against our way of life," says Juan Carlos Quinteros, head of the Gualeguaychú Citizens Environmental Assembly.

Until now, Gualeguaychú, like Fray Bentos, had been a popular destination for tourists from nearby Buenos Aires. Families came to swim in the warm river and lounge on its sandy beaches. But given health concerns and the unsightly view of a huge factory on the shore and a recurring stench reminiscent of cabbage and rotten eggs, residents fear that tourism will dry up.

"People are not going to come like they did before," says Susana Padín, the group's secretary.

The people who volunteer to guard the road leading to the bridge range from retirees to student activists. Some actually live at the roadblock.

They pass the nights grilling beef, drinking Argentine wine and playing with Corte, a brown-spotted mutt whose name means roadblock in local Spanish. Corte was brought to the bridge as a puppy and has grown with the movement.

At 16 months, he is fully grown, and the roadblock is no longer one makeshift shack and a flimsy metal gate. An old school bus was added for sleeping and storage, and the original shack converted into a barbecue pit. Recently, a business donated a cinderblock building with electricity and air-conditioning.

From the bridge, protesters point to a slow, shallow river bend. There, they say, the pollution from Botnia is not flushed downstream, but lingers in the shallows.

"We have the highest quality technologies," says Botnia representative Matías Martínez. "The mill has surpassed expectations."

The plant, he says, uses the most environmentally advanced technology in the pulp industry. Nevertheless, it requires more than 250 gallons of water per second. Approximately 70 percent is returned to the river, bearing chlorine compounds, phosphorous, nitrogen and suspended solids, says Dr. Martín Alazard, a trauma specialist who heads the citizens' association health committee.

Some of these are persistent organic pollutants, Dr. Alazard adds, which can take centuries or more to break down.

Although the amounts are relatively small, "They add up," says Alazard. "They accumulate in animal tissues." Humans, being at the top of the food chain, he says, consume ever greater amounts of these contaminants, increasing risks of cancer, nervous disorders, immune system malfunction and birth defects.

Besides its 1,250-acre factory, Botnia relies on extensive monocultures of Australian eucalyptus here, which in this green corner of South America take only eight to 10 years to mature, two to three times faster than in Europe. However, says Jorge Daniel Taillant, executive director of Argentina's Center for Human Rights and the Environment, these eucalyptus require large inputs of fertilizers, another threat to the environment.

According to data released by Botnia, the plant functions within accepted international limits, which are based on a percentage of contaminants per ton. But Gualeguaychú protesters argue that those standards make no sense for a factory this size. With Botnia's plan to produce more than 1 million tons of paper pulp annually, it will be one of the largest pulp mills in the world. Even small percentages of contaminants, argue Alazard, multiplied by Botnia's immense production will impact the environment and human health.

As with all border disputes, the question is who determines what is legal in a shared environment. For the residents of Gualeguaychú, neither a Finnish company nor Uruguay has the right to decide what happens in their backyard.

"The key is, how do we want to live?" says attorney Osvaldo Fernández. "We want to live well. Not like this."

In May 2006, a lawsuit was filed on Argentina's behalf in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Argentina claimed Uruguay violated the 1975 Treaty of the Uruguay River by not receiving permission from Argentina to construct the pulp mill, and by not disclosing the environmental effects.

Uruguay claimed it followed treaty procedures and filed a countersuit pointing to Argentina's blockade of the international bridge as a violation of Mercosur, a regional free trade agreement between most South American countries. Both await a final ruling that could come as late as 2009.

In the meantime, the protest has attracted international attention. In Argentina it has inspired other environmental campaigns.

"We would like to have a movement similar to Gualeguaychú's someday," says Alfredo Alberti, president of Vecinos la Boca, a Buenos Aires group suing the Argentine government to clean up the Riachuelo, the most polluted river in Argentina. "The difference is that in Gualeguaychú they are used to a clean environment. The arrival of a polluting industry was a cultural shock. Here people have grown accustomed to pollution over generations."

A leading lawyer on the Botnia case, Romina Picolotti, was recently named head of Argentina's Secretary of the Environment and Sustainable Development. And a Spanish paper mill that was planned near Fray Bentos decided to relocate farther downstream.

Gualeguaychú has become the before-and-after reference point for environmentalism in Argentina, says Juan Martín Rivas a student activist of the citizens' association. "It has inspired people."

But the roadblock that led to these accomplishments has economically punished and inconvenienced their neighbor. It has strained relationships between the countries, despite the protesters' insistence that they are not against Uruguay, but against Botnia.

Meanwhile, honeymooners and families wishing to see relatives will continue to be turned away on the international bridge. The dog Corte will continue to age along with his namesake. Fray Bentos will remain a relic of what it once was, and Botnia will light up like the New York skyline, flickering on the still waters of the Río Uruguay. The glare of its lights illuminates the beaches of Gualeguaychú every evening, a reminder of the stalemate that has torn these once-unified cities.

Deeper inland, Uruguay just approved a Portuguese paper mill.

It will be bigger than Botnia.