El Paso is so Polluted Because of Mexico, Expert Says

According to the American Lung Association, El Paso has some of the dirtiest air in the country. About 40 miles north, Las Cruces New Mexico doesn’t fare much better.

This comes from the ALA’s “State of the Air 2024” report that gave the entire El Paso border region a grade of “F” for ozone pollution.

The Lung Association gets its data from the EPA, which in turn gets its data from local, city and county air quality monitors.  This is public information which you can see at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality website.

Certainly, there are many contributing factors to El Paso’s air quality. Combined with Juarez, we’re a community of over 3 million, driving cars every day. We’ve also got plenty of industry that produces pollution. And, it’s a dusty, desert city that often gets high winds that kick everything up into the lower atmosphere.

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But, a spokesman for TxCEQ says El Paso has an EXTRA contributing factor in it’s struggle to meet air standards: Mexico.

Ricky Richter, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told El Paso Matters that the organization use trajectory models that show much of our pollution is being blown in from Mexico.

That’s a fancy, sciency way of saying, “Some of Mexico’s air (which doesn’t have to meet EPA standards), gets blown across the border (not that our air was that great to begin with)”.

I guess Bob Dylan might have been wrong. You DO need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.