Conservationists ramp up clean-up at border

By Lily Leung
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 6 a.m.

A conservation group in Imperial Beach is increasing its efforts this month to control pollution in the border region.

Members of Wildcoast will launch a program Saturday that gives environmental seminars to people who live in Cañon de los Laureles, an area in Tijuana that lacks trash and recycling services, said Fay Crevoshay at Wildcoast.

The program, called Cañones Limpios (or Clean Canyons) will educate Tijuana residents about recycling and composting.

Coordinators also will teach Mexicans how to pool resources to be ecologically friendly, for instance, by coordinating truck trips to take recyclables to processing plants.

Wildcoast leaders said about 10 million bottles of plastic and more than 4,000 tires are in the Tijuana River Valley, below Cañon de los Laureles.

"It's not as simple there," Crevoshay said. "There's no trash collection."

Wildcoast volunteers plan to continue trying to reduce the number of tires washing up in the river valley after storms. They collect tons of tires twice a year. Allied Waste, a trash-collection company in San Diego, will provide roll-away bins for the clean-ups.

Officials of the nonprofit group said they have secured funding from San Diego County to remove tires from the area.

"We're trying to stop the tsunami of trash coming down" the river valley, Crevoshay said.

Lily Leung: (619)293-1719; lily.leung@uniontrib.com; Twitter @LilyShumLeung

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