Posted on 06/12/2005 8:06:02 AM PDT by John Jorsett
For decades, the open sewer known as the New River has carried a toxic brew of pollutants across the U.S.-Mexico border, through Calexico and Brawley and on to the Salton Sea, polluting everything in its path.
Despite a quarter century of promises on both sides of the border, the New River still stinks, still directly threatens the health of tens of thousands of Californians and still qualifies as perhaps the most polluted waterway in North America. In addition to the raw sewage dumped into the river in Mexicali, the New River's sludge contains heavy metals, pesticides and numerous disease-carrying pathogens, according to the California Environmental Protection Agency.
In 1979, the California Department of Health reported that water samples from the New River contained levels of intestinal bacteria 1 million times higher than that permissible for domestic rivers under standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Today, a quarter-century later, the New River is almost certainly filthier than it was then.
On any given night, scores of Mexican migrants seeking to enter the United States illegally float down the New River, hiding amid its coagulated white foam and counting on the river's noxious filth to keep the U.S. Border Patrol at bay. After their immersion in the most disease-breeding water on the continent, some of these migrants then move on to work in agriculture and food-service industries in California.
Border Patrol agents who accidentally fall into the New River while pursuing illegal migrants are immediately sent to a hospital to be disinfected.
Enough is enough. This environmental disgrace has gone on far too long.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
Mexico continues to play Washington, DC, like a fiddle.
If "wetlands" is a euphemism, then by all means, pump that river water right up their wetlands.
From the article:
After their immersion in the most disease-breeding water on the continent, some of these migrants then move on to work in agriculture and food-service industries in California.
We need cheap labor. Quit being so squeamish.
Enough is enough.
Who are you kidding? If "enough" was "enough" this sick joke would end.
This environmental disgrace has gone on far too long.
Have you seen the deserts in Arizona?
A *ping* for filthy water.
Exactly.
ping to the border and health.
The whole damn thing is a disgrace.
The Tribune makes it sound like the US has a hand in this pollution also. Anyone know what (if any) our "contribution" to this is? Or is it just the Tribune trying to make the article more palatible to the Mexicans?
My guess is that our "contribution" is the millions of dollars that we send to Mexico one way or another - NAFTA included - is intended to be spent on betterment of "insert country name." Is it any different than the money we send to any other country that ends up in the hands of a very greedy few rather than the direction it was intended.
My question then becomes, why do we continue to send them the money that we know will be squandered? You can read that as either "them" being the other country, or "them" being our own Congress.
that's just disgusting.....
Disgusting that it is squandered? Or disgusting that they keep taking it away from us?
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