Audio Clip
US Environmental Agency Helps Clean Up Border
Jose Luis Jimenez
Cars wait to enter the U.S. from Mexico at the San Ysidro Port of Entry near San Diego.
The federal government is pitching in to cleanup the United States-Mexico border. The Environmental Protection Agency has just awarded $461,368 in grants to fund several public health projects.
One project aims to reduce the pollution from idling cars waiting at the Calexico and Nogales ports of entry. Another will clean up trash in the Tijuana River. A third will educate the manufacturing industry about what chemicals cannot be dumped in the border’s landfills and wastewater treatment plants.
Several nonprofit conservation organizations will contribute another $354,746 to complete these projects.
This is the latest in a series of border cleanup efforts. Through La Paz and the North American Free Trade Agreements the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has paid to help remove 12 million scrap tires and recycled more than 500 tons of electronic waste on the border.
Not to mention it connected households along the border with drinking water and wastewater services. That has helped more than 8.5 million people.