EPA Blames Emissions From Mexico for Dusty Air in Imperial County

For years, residents of Imperial County have breathed some of the dirtiest air in the nation. In recent years, the incidence of respiratory disease in the county has been more than twice the statewide average, according to the state health department.

County officials blame the problem on Mexico, prompting a lawsuit last year by an advocacy group, Earthjustice, on behalf of the Sierra Club to force a crackdown on pollution. Last week, in response to the lawsuit, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency echoed the county’s argument and declined to require more rigorous pollution control.

The agency concluded that emissions from Mexicali, a fast-growing nearby town in Mexico, are largely responsible for the deteriorating air quality along California’s southeastern border.

That determination effectively spares growers in Imperial County from stringent pollution controls and sanctions. About 250 tons of smoke and dust are released in Imperial County daily, mostly from farm equipment, crop burning and dust blowing off sugar beet and lettuce fields, as well as from the unpaved roads that lace the valley’s 581,000 acres of irrigated cropland.

The region is one of the richest agricultural centers in the nation and provides much of the country’s wintertime vegetables.

The EPA concluded that pollution from Imperial County was not enough to cause the air-quality violations. Indeed, were it not for haze coming from Mexico, Imperial County would have met U.S. pollution standards in 1994, the agency concluded.

“There’s been such tremendous growth in Tijuana, Mexicali and other cities, and there’s a lot of activity that’s kicking up dust that blows along the border,” said Jack Broadbent, EPA’s administrator for air programs in California.

Environmentalists blasted the agency’s decision, charging that the EPA is being soft on smog to avoid an international dispute and a conflict with growers.

“EPA’s waiver of health standards is absolutely disgraceful,” said David Baron, attorney for San Francisco-based Earthjustice. “EPA seems more concerned with protecting industry and agribusiness than with protecting the lungs of children in the Imperial Valley.”

Blueprint for Cleanup Years Behind Schedule

Baron said environmentalists are contemplating further legal action to force more stringent smog controls in Imperial County. County officials are nine years behind schedule in preparing a comprehensive blueprint for cleanup. A cleanup plan is being prepared, although there is no deadline to complete it, said EPA staffer Doris Lo.

Much of the pollution consists of microscopic particles, so tiny they evade the body’s defenses and lodge deep in people’s lungs. Numerous studies around the world have linked this type of pollution to cancer, lung disease, heart attacks and asthma.

“With the dust, environmental pollution from pesticides and insecticides, we do see more patients with asthma symptoms,” said Dr. Patrick Wolcott, a pulmonary specialist in El Centro. “We have more patients and more respiratory symptoms during certain portions of the year when it’s windy and there’s lots of dust in the air.”

The dispute between environmentalists and the EPA underscores a growing problem around the nation in which communities, required by the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments to mark significant progress toward clean air, are failing to meet those goals.

Air quality in some communities in the South and Midwest has actually deteriorated, while in California progress has slowed in the face of population growth from Imperial County to the San Joaquin Valley to San Francisco.

Pollution From Mexico Detected in Rockies

Meanwhile, along the border, rapid growth in Mexico is producing more and more air pollution that sometimes blows north into the American Southwest. Scientists say they detect pollution from Mexico as far north as the central Rockies.

According to the EPA, concentrations of particle smog 71% greater than the daily federal limit have been recorded in Calexico. The county violates health standards for so-called fine particulate one day in three. In one neighborhood on the east side of town, where the Immigration and Naturalization Service routinely drags tires across the soil along the border to help track illegal immigrants, particulate concentrations 11 times the limit have been recorded.

Yet in the triage of smog control across the West, pollution in the Imperial Valley has not received as much attention as in more populated regions, including Las Vegas, San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

California’s southeastern corner also lacks effective citizen involvement to press for environmental improvements. The area is poor and largely Latino, and suffers chronic unemployment.

“There’s a lot of hopelessness. People are reluctant to speak out against the growers,” said Jan Cortez, vice president of environmental health for the American Lung Assn. of San Diego and Imperial counties. “A lot of nonprofits get their funding from local industry and they’re afraid they’ll lose funding if they speak up. And there’s a lot of finger-pointing back and forth across the border.”

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Outside Influences

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that Mexicali, a fast-growing town in Mexico, is mostly to blame for the deteriorating air quality in Imperial County. Environmentalists want strict standards enforced nonetheless.