After 50 Years, New Hope for Detoxifying New River : Pollution: It brings a poisonous stew from Mexico into the U.S. Now both nations are taking cleanup seriously.

Like a toxic stew, the New River flows inexorably into the United States: pea-soup green in color and texture, laden with fecal matter and carcinogens, topped with detergent foam, and carrying the virus that causes polio and the bacteria that cause typhoid and cholera.

For half a century, the river has been a binational disaster, carrying the human and industrial wastes of Mexicali into the Imperial Valley with impunity and earning the ignominious distinction as the dirtiest river in the United States.

In Mexico, the river runs for 22 miles past schools and tumbledown neighborhoods in Mexicali before reaching the U.S. border at Calexico. Then it winds an additional 60 miles north through some of the richest farmland in the world before dumping its load--now with the added wallop of agricultural pesticides--into the troubled Salton Sea.

Five presidential administrations--and their counterparts in Mexico City--have promised to do something about the New River, but little has been accomplished.

“Living near the New River is like having a rattlesnake in your back yard,” said Yvonne Smith, public health director for Imperial County. “You never know when it’s going to strike.”

Although it is far too early to say that the rattlesnake is being defanged, there are encouraging signs that help is finally on the way for the New River in this era of the North American Free Trade Agreement when border environmental problems are being taken more seriously in both the United States and Mexico.

For openers, Congress has appropriated $5 million for a dozen “quick fix” repair jobs on the Mexicali sewer system, aimed at significantly reducing the flow of raw sewage into the New River and displaying to Washington and Mexico City that the river is not beyond redemption.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), who represents the Imperial Valley, is optimistic that New River projects will get a lion’s share of $47.5 million allocated to the International Boundary and Water Commission for anti-pollution efforts along the border.

One proposal is to use some of the $47.5 million as the U.S. contribution to building an entirely new sewage system in Mexicali with a similar amount coming from Mexico or a binational bank set up in the wake of NAFTA.

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The current Mexicali sewer system, despite improvements, has long been unable to cope with that city’s burgeoning population, which is estimated at anywhere from 650,000 to 1 million or more. When the system is particularly overtaxed, the river runs black.

Adding to the river’s toxic payload are the increasing number of manufacturing plants, many owned by American companies, that have sprouted in Mexicali. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency have signaled that these plants are no longer free to dump toxic substances into the river.

At Calexico, where the U.S. portion of the river is at its worst, the stench can burn the eyes and throats of people on the banks.

“People are frustrated,” said Imperial County Supervisor Brad Luckey. “I have a group of people who would love to put a dam up at the border but that wouldn’t solve the problem.

Winter dust storms can blow river foam, which has been found to contain disease agents, onto the parking lot of a Calexico shopping center where people step in it. “When it gets windy, that stuff flies all over,” said Marina Lamarque, a teacher in Calexico.

Bodies plucked from the river look like they have been scalded from head to toe. Cars pushed into the river corrode with amazing swiftness.

The Imperial County Sheriff’s Department rescue squad, which is often required to retrieve submerged bodies or cars or weapons, enters the New River only when all other methods of retrieval fail. Divers wear special gear to prevent the river’s water from touching their skin.

The health hazards posed by the New River have long been the subject of discussion but have never been fully documented.

“The New River is a time bomb waiting to explode on both sides of the border,” said Dr. Lee Cottrell, the former health officer for Imperial County who fought for nearly 20 years to get the federal government concerned about the river. “I’m convinced that kids on the Mexican side have been getting sick because of it for years.”

An agency of the U.S. Public Health Service is doing its first health evaluation of the New River. If nothing else, the evaluation being done by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry could add to the political pressure to clean up the river by confirming the presence of health hazards that local doctors have long suspected.

The EPA is attempting to goad American-owned businesses in Mexicali into stopping discharge of toxic wastes into the river. The businesses are a virtual what’s-what of American manufacturing, producing everything from automobile parts and electronic components to lingerie and household hardware.

The EPA requested that the American owners of 95 maquiladoras voluntarily submit lists of the kinds and amounts of chemicals the plants are using. When the owners balked, the EPA upped the ante and served the plants’ American headquarters with subpoenas compelling compliance.

The U.S. attorney for San Diego and Imperial counties, Alan Bersin, said he is considering charges against American companies putting toxics willy-nilly into the New River. Such a case, which would face daunting legal and scientific hurdles, could set an international precedent that U.S. pollution laws can be enforced even when companies are outside U.S. boundaries.

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On a blistering summer day, Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Lois Schiffer, who is in charge of enforcing laws affecting the environment and natural resources, donned hiking boots and jeans and walked the banks of the New River. She was appalled at what she saw and smelled.

“I thought it was one of the foulest, dirtiest, awfulest things I’ve seen,” Schiffer said. “I had never seen a river as bad and I’ve seen many, many rivers. It’s pretty grim.”

The New River was created in 1905 when the Colorado River jumped its banks south of the border and flowed north until it filled what was then known as the Salton Sink and is now the Salton Sea. Because much of the Imperial Valley is below sea level, the New River is one of the few rivers in the world to flow north.

As Mexicali grew as a manufacturing and population center, so did the problems of the New River, which has no substantial source of water except for runoff and sewage outfall.

The desire to clean up the river is equally strong on both sides of the border. In the United States, the river is an outrage. In Mexico, the river is both an outrage and an embarrassment.

“The people of Mexicali hate the New River,” said Mario Ernesto Luna, an engineer with the Mexicali department of public works. “It is a sign of our underdevelopment.”

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Although the initial amount of money--$5 million--allocated to the Mexicali sewer system may seem small compared with other public works projects, it is still significant because it will allow a larger percentage of the city’s sewer water to get to the sewage plant rather than be discharged directly into the river. Chronic problems of the system include broken pipes and pumps, lack of connectors and poor maintenance.

“I haven’t had much to be optimistic about when it comes to the New River since we started testing in 1975,” said Phil Gruenberg, executive officer with the regional office of the state Water Quality Control Board. “But at the moment, I’m fairly optimistic that we might start seeing some measurable progress in the next two years.”

In the United States, the 60-mile course to the Salton Sea, with its twists and bends and three small drops in elevation, does result in a certain amount of detoxification on the New River so that the water is not as polluted when it reaches the Salton Sea as it is at Calexico.

Part of the credit for the burst of official interest in the river lies with NAFTA and the binational agencies created by it. But some of the credit also belongs to the Imperial County Board of Supervisors and its adroit strategy to get the attention of EPA bureaucrats.

At first, the supervisors thought of suing the federal government for letting the New River fester. Instead, they hired a Los Angeles attorney who had once been general counsel to the EPA. The attorney recommended a bureaucratic procedure called a “petition for rule-making” in which Imperial County laid out its grievances against the fetid river and asked that something be done about it.

To the surprise of many in the Imperial Valley, the EPA responded by promising to get more aggressive in dealing with the New River. The county supervisors are cautiously optimistic that this time Washington and Mexico City really mean what they say about cleaning the river.

State health inspectors have found bacteria such as shigella and salmonella and disease agents known to cause meningitis, polio, typhoid, cholera and other diseases. Mosquitoes on the New River have been found to carry encephalitis viruses that can be spread to humans.

As long ago as 1944, the U.S. and Mexican governments pledged to fix the New River. Why then is the river considered as dirty and dangerous as ever?

One reason may be the remoteness of Imperial County, both geographically and politically, from the seats of power. Another is its sparse population--about 130,000 residents. And then there is that old governmental bugaboo, budget problems.

“Basically there just hasn’t been the money,” said Roy Schroeder, research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and supervisor of a program to periodically test the New River at Mexicali, Calexico and the Salton Sea. “The fact that there are not a lot of condominiums along the river means there is a lot less concern than if it was going through an urban area.”

In Calexico, Dr. Minerva Kelada, a family practitioner, said she has been shocked in her 18 months in the Imperial Valley to find a higher incidence of gastrointestinal problems and bacterial infections than she did when she was practicing in Africa and the Middle East. She cannot prove it, but she thinks the New River may be responsible.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m practicing in a Third World country,” she said. “You don’t expect to find a river like that in America.”

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A Tide of Broken Promises

Here are some highlights of the half-century history of accords that have done little to clean up the New River:

* 1944: Washington and Mexico City agree to work cooperatively to clean up the river.

* 1950: Congress authorizes the secretary of state to work with the Mexican government on cleanup.

* 1972: After meeting with President Richard Nixon on the matter, Mexico’s President Luis Echeverria Alvarez orders an end to the dumping of raw sewage in the New River, promising that most of it will be curbed within the year.

* 1979: U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo, meeting in Mexico City, discuss the continuing problems of the river. The same year, a Mexican federal official is quoted in the Los Angeles Times: “We have the solution already planned. We just need the time to finish it.”

* 1986: U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mexican President Roberto de la Madrid, meeting in Mexicali, discuss river problems.

* 1987: A Mexican federal official quoted in the Los Angeles Times says “give us one year” to make major improvements.

* 1992: The International Boundary and Water Commission adopts a plan to clean up the river. A U.S. commissioner promises to swim in it in 1995.

* 1994: The Imperial County Board of Supervisors sends a plea for help to the Environmental Protection Agency: “The New River has been an environmental disgrace for over 50 years.”

* 1995: Imperial County Supervisor Wayne Van De Graaff says, “When all is said and done about the New River, there’s been a lot more said than done.”

The Dirty River

The New River, flowing northward from Mexicali into the Imperial Valley, has long been considered the dirtiest river in the United States, a filthy concoction of human and industrial wastes. Now at long last there are signs that something may be done to stem the flow of toxics.