The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in coordination with the North American Development Bank (NADB), has selected eight environmental and public health projects to be implemented on both sides of the border in the California/Baja California and Arizona/Sonora border regions through the new U.S.-Mexico Border 2025 program. The agency will award $552,899 for the programs, and an additional $574,949 will be matched by the recipient organizations.
The projects meet the objectives of the U.S.-Mexico Border 2025 program: to reduce air pollution; improve water quality; promote sustainable materials management and waste management; and improve joint preparedness for and responses to environmental emergencies.
Project Descriptions:
•Secretaría de Salud del Estado de Baja California (Ministry of Health of Baja California) will develop a GIS-based analysis of existing air monitoring data, population information, and data from medical facilities in Mexicali and Imperial Valley. The project will help to determine the relative vulnerability of the populations and use this information to guide the development of a public health outreach campaign.
•Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación Ambiental (Border Environmental Education Project) will develop a pilot project to prevent dumping of garbage in overburdened communities in Tijuana near the Alamar River.
•Instituto de Planeación Ambiental y Calidad de Vida (Institute of Environmental Planning and Quality of Life) will strengthen the Solid Waste Management Plan of the Kumiai Indigenous community of San Antonio Necua.
•Environmental Health Coalition, a binational non-profit, will conduct a socio-environmental vulnerability and solid waste analysis in the forested area of the Alamar River.
•Arizona State University will work with emergency preparedness and response leaders and key stakeholders to evaluate and enhance six binational Sister-City Joint Contingency plans.
•Secretaría de Desarrollo Urbano y Ecología (Urban Development and Ecology Secretariat of Sonora) will identify alternatives for water reuse to reduce heavy metals in the Nogales International Wastewater Treatment Plant in Rio Rico, Arizona.
•Cocopah Indian Tribe will assess water quality in the Colorado River upstream of Cocopah tribal lands. The tribe will also develop a design for a wetland/riparian restoration project to reuse treated water.
•Borderlands Restoration Network seeks to improve best management practices for sediment control on both sides of the Arizona/Sonora border.
Published in the May 2022 Edition