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Show T Sunday, December 3, 1995 THE DAILY HERALD, Provo, Utah ..... .' ..i. ii Li v By ERNEST SANDER Associated Press Writer " For all its rank odor and MEXICALI, Mexico At night the stench wafts up from the greenish river and burrows into Blanca Sanchez's shanty. The river is a stew of human waste, industrial effluent and agricultural chemicals. Its odors attack the senses. Sleep is difficult, sore throats frequent. Sanchez says the water teems with germs for cholera, polio, dysentery. "We have to be after the kids all the time so they don't fall in." said Sanchez. He has seen mentally retarded transients bathe in the turgid water, even drink it. It is named the New River, a name implying freshness, cleanliness. What a cruel misnomer. For decades, this waterway spanning two countries has landed on everybody's list of the most fetid in North America. Penuriousness and indifference have allowed the pollution to build. Now, finally, the two countries, the United States and Mexico, appear to be ready to finance a binational cleanup plan. '."Work is happening right now," said Douglas Eberhardt of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "But it is not something where we have a long history of this type of cooperation." If the North American Free Trade Agreement is a watershed in tariff-fre-e trade between nations, then the New River cleanup is a test of whether nations can cooperate as smoothly on environmental concerns. A clean river would not only enhance the region's image, fish and wildlife would likely return. No longer would residents have to mutely accept a toxic river. : "They have just lived with it for so long," said Wayne Van De Graaff, an Imperial County supervisor and border resident for 40 years. "They've become used to it." . After the New River leaves Mexicali, it flows through the U.S. desert city of Calexico, past several wildlife breeding habitats, an egret rookery and finally, 60 miles later, empties into the Salton Sea, a but now fading recreational area. Both the New River and Salton Se were accidents of man, an unintended consequence of an attempt earlier this century to divert Colorado River water to irrigate Imperial Valley crops. Feces, animal parts, tires and trash bags have been spotted bobbing up and down in the river. i Sometimes a body floats up. , once-popul- ar 5 .i Julius. i. ii I . Page G5 mi m --- s, I ' ; system, and U.S. officials have balked at paying to solve a problem widely viewed as originating in off-putti- appearance, Mexican officials say the river has not caused any health crises. But, north of the border, several Imperial County Mexico. "To design any kind of treatment fl e'.i1 jUV'. it Both the New River and Salton Sea were accidents of man, an unintended consequence of an attempt earlier this century to divert Colorado River water. doctors have detected a higher than procedures, you have to have some normal incidence of infections in control over the source and we eyes, skin and respiratory tracts, as don't have that in Mexico," said well as hair loss. Gruenberg. "The only way to get it The U.S. Public Health Service cleaned up is to have Mexico do it." is testing to determine if those or But the United States' hands are any other ailments are linked to the not totally clean. At least some of the river's polriver. Residents north of the border lution comes from pesticides like DDT used in Imperial County, and fear a major epidemic. "North of the border it's pretty U.S. manufacturers are rumored to well known that this is a polluted cross into Mexicali to dump their river," said Thomas Wolf of the chemical waste into the river. Jose Alberto Castaneda Estrada, Imperial County Health Department. "The potential is there. It's director general of Baja California's water services commission, really just a time bomb." The cleanup campaign centers acknowledges the pollution is on an overburdened sewage treatsevere but denies that raw sewage ment system in Mexicali, a city of 1 leaks are a daily event. million and expanding on the U.S.He says Mexico is more aggresMexico border. sive than ever in fighting the pollution's sources. The state now Pipes and pumps in Mexicali carry domestic and industrial waste requires companies on the border to from homes and businesses to treatpretreat their wastewater on site, ment lagoons at two different plants. The treated water is then dumped into the New River. But the city's population is bulging and the aging equipment is under increasing stress. One of the plants is forced to process more than three times its capacity, causing islands of sludge to form in one l of the lagoons. Pipes often collapse, pumps break and untreated water spews into the river. "These problems are occurring on a daily basis," said Phil Gruen-berof the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, which tests the river regularly. During one month last year, four of six pumps faltered and as much as 0 million gallons of raw sewage a day poured into the river, accordt ing to U.S. officials. But the cleanup has been stalled by unanswered questions: How do you divvy up responsibility when a river passes through two countries? How much should each country pay? How much effort should each t hl AP Photo A city employee lifts a dead fish from a canal near the New River in Mexicali, Mexico, earlier this year. The city has had problems with fish dying because thus reducing the likelihood of gumming up the lagoons, he said. "Both countries are trying to resolve this problem," said Castaneda. "But because of politics and the number of people involved, it is taking some time." The U.S. Congress has appropriated $47 million for wastewater U.S.projects along the 2,000-mil- e Mexico border. Some of that money ; ul JUlUJ il 1 home furnishings! ble source two countries negotiate to build a new, larger facility. "This is the first time we have had a big pot of money we can tap for the New River," said the EPA's Eberhardt. The North American Development Bank, or NADBank, formed under NAFTA to loan money to border environmental projects, is a possi 1 ' of revenue for a new plant. As the cleanup inches forward, U.S. officials say border residents must not blame their neighbors acre ;s the border. "People say to me every day, 'Let's get bulldozers and flood all that material back into Mexico.' Of course, that is no solution either," said Van De Graaff. "But it sounds to help patch Mexicali's existing treatment system while the is expected ' IUii,!J of extreme temperatures and stagnant canals, causing foul odors. The New River is considered one of North America's most polluted rivers. ; good." m h nV r IK JilOlM Xjj I. iii.'i ! j g, J 13 i.' Ji 1 I x expend? Mexico has failed to generate the money to renovate its treatment Study: Global warming aggravated by humans By HEATHER DEWAR ; ; Knight-Ridd- Newspapers It is offi- WASHINGTON cial: global warming is real, it has already begun and there is strong evidence that human activities like burning oil and coal are at least partly to blame. !And the only way to slow it dwn is through an accelerated worldwide effort to reduce the greenhouse gases people are pouring into the atmosphere. I Representatives of more than 80 nations have agreed to accept those findings and others in a new report to the United Nations. I The study, completed late Wednesday night at a conference in U.N.-spon-sor- ed Madrid, Spain, represents the strongest consensus the world's scientists and policy makers have reached so far on the likelihood of global climate change. Observers at the international meeting said representatives of countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait tried to weaken some conclusions of the in report, which was seven years the making and drew on the work of, more than 2,500 experts worldwide. But after negotiations that stretched past midnight Madrid time, the members of the U.N.'s Intereovernmental Panel on agreed to the report's "The balance of statement: key evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." The sentence is a careful comwith a scienpromise, in keeping tific tradition against conclusions. But it is significant because it is the first time that nearly all of the world's climate scientists have agreed that peoa major ple's actions are probably warmcontributor to worldwide ing. "The scientists are saying, human beings have stamped their and policy imprint on the climate, makers have got to listen to that," said scientist Michael Oppen-iieimof the Environmental an observer at the Fund, Defense Madrid talks. "It shifts the frame cr work of the debate substantially. The skeptics can't argue that this is some theoretical thing that might or might not happen someday. It's happening now." The final text of the panel's report was scheduled to be released in London on Thursday. It raises the stakes in the international effort to lower levels of greenhouse gases. At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, two years ago, more than 80 countries signed a climate treaty that requires developed countries to bring their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2000. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tightened air pollution regulations and Congress has passed a tougher version of the Clean Air Act, which some members of the current Congress would like to repeal or revise. Even with tougher new regulations. Vice President Al Gore and other White House officials said earlier this fall that it appears unlikely the United States will be able to meet the goal. . Still greater reductions would be needed to make a significant dent in the rate of climate change, the panel's report concluded. 111 on cellular service with AT&Trtless Services. Select If $ simple Just sign up for a Q(i3!ifl!3g service pEan that's fcest fcr you. 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