In 2016 The Desert Sun journalist Ian James and I began to examine the issue of pollution in the New River, which flows across the border from Mexicali into California’s Imperial County. As we learned more from affected communities, government officials, and local activists, the project ultimately became an investigation into the widespread pollution of air and water in the area. Over the next two years we worked to show how widespread pollution in the area was, what was contributing to it, and what was the both the environmental and human cost of it.
Teenagers swim in the Pacífico Canal in the Mexicali Valley. Their parents work as "pepenadores," or trash pickers, at a nearby dump.
Paola Solach, center, plays with her cousins outside her home near the Industrias Zahori factory in Mexicali.
Yojana Núñez Ramírez lives with her husband and their 2-year-old daughter, Fernanda, on a small farm next to the Industrias Zahori factory in Mexicali.
A woman walks two children home from school through a vacant lot in Mexicali, passing a heap of burning tires and trash.
Students drink water from a cooler at Leonardo da Vinci Integral School in Mexicali.
Luis Raudel Arámbula, who has asthma, sees Dr. Daniel Martín Tamayo for a checkup at Mexicali's General Hospital on Aug. 16, 2018.
Julian López stands outside his home in a neighborhood next to several factories in Mexicali.
Michelle Dugan-Delgado visits the grave of her sister Marie Dugan at the Coachella Valley Cemetery in Coachella. Marie died of an asthma attack in El Centro in 2009.
Michelle Dugan-Delgado uses a neublizer treatment and a vest airway-clearing system twice a day to improve her lung functioning and prevent asthma attacks
A burrowing owl perches atop a headstone at the Jardin Descanso Eterno Cemetery in Mexicali.
Cows are kept in a corral next to the Grupo Simec steel mill, which is flanked by a row of homes and farmland near Mexicali.
Blanca Ramírez points out cracks in the walls of her family’s home. She suspects they were caused by explosions at the nearby steel mill.
The New River flows across the border into California. This section of the border fence was recently removed and replaced with a new, taller barrier.
Border Patrol Agents Ruben Sigala, center, and Jose Enriquez, right, talk with other agents while patrolling the New River in Calexico on Sept. 19, 2018.
Inflows of the New River meet before flowing across the border through a gap in the international border fence, Mexicali, Mexico.
A wall in Ernestina Calderón's house is covered with family photos.
Ciro Calderón sits with his grandchildren at his home in Calexico.
At her home in Calexico, Ernestina Calderón looks outside at her grandchildren.
Miguel and Rebeca Zapata walk on a bare patch of dirt between their backyard and the banks of the New River.
Antonio Ramírez reads the newspaper at his home in Calexico.
A man walks by a lot filled with old trucks in an industrial neighborhood in Mexicali.
The Fevisa factory stands beside homes in the neighborhood of Ejido el Choropo south of Mexicali.