EL PASO, Texas — Residents of a Chamizal neighborhood in El Paso are very concerned about the high levels of pollution in the area. According to them, pollution in the area can be attributed to several factors, but mainly it's because they live just right next to the international bridge.

Hilda Villegas is part of the Chamizal United Families Association, formed to express their dissatisfaction with the quality of the air in their area.

“We have U.S. 54, then we have the International Port Of Entry in the south. We have I-10 at north and the railway, and we also have in west the recycling facility. So we have all these different sources of pollution,” said Villegas.

One of the biggest concerns for them is how pollution affects children in schools.  

Villegas mentions that when kids are playing outside, they are breathing “those elements and metals,” and the kids get them in their lungs and it can cause lead poisoning.

Now, Villegas, and her group are demanding the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality take action to clean up air pollution in El Paso, rather than trying to escape responsibility by blaming Mexico.

“TCEQ is saying that Juarez is to blame,” Villegas said. “Yet there has not been an environmental health impact assessment ever done in El Paso.”

When asked if El Paso should face more regulation because of pollution coming from Juárez, Gary Rasp, TCEQ media relations specialist, released a statement saying: “No. Section 179B of the Federal Clean Air Act allows states to demonstrate that an area would have attained a National Ambient Air Quality Standard, ‘but for’ international emissions contributions.”

But Villegas claims TCEQ is only using loopholes.

“There is industry in Juarez which El Paso says is unregulated, but the majority of the industry producing the pollution are U.S. companies,” mentioned the leader of Chamizal United Families.

In Dec. 2021, United Families, along with other environmental groups, won a federal lawsuit requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to reassess false air quality data. TCEQ is challenging that decision.