The river mostly consists of agricultural runoff, municipal discharge, and industrial wastewater. It flows north from Mexico into the United States and has been called the most severely polluted river of its size in the US. Despite some efforts to clean it up, in 2019, toxic chemicals, heavy metals and raw sewage continue to be found in the river. Discarded trash, dead animals, and other waste line the channel, whose toxic foam blows from the river into the streets of the border towns of Calexico and Mexicali. Part of the problem has been the proliferation of US owned small manufacturing plants in Mexico that can pay lower wages and are not constrained by our environmental regulations. The irony here is that we are receiving our own toxic pollution back to the US through the New River that empties into California's Salton Sea.