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LAREDO, Texas — Students from the United States and Mexico tested water quality and participated in community cleanups along the Rio Grande as part of Día del Río, an annual environmental initiative organized by the nonprofit Rio Grande International Study Center.
At Zacate Creek, a tributary of the Rio Grande in Laredo, students collected trash and debris to help keep pollution out of the river.
M.B. Lamar Middle School student Abraham De Leon was among the participants. He said protecting the river matters because his community depends on it for drinking water.
“If you think about it, if we don't handle what's wrong with the river, it's just gonna go bad, and that's our only source of water,” De Leon said.
Organizers said about 600 students from 82 schools on both sides of the border, including neighboring Nuevo Laredo, participated in this year's activities. Día del Río has grown from a single-day event into a monthlong series of environmental programs.
The initiative also includes the Rio Research Roundup, a larger water-monitoring project involving nearly 1,800 students from the United States and Mexico. Participants from Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, along with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Tamaulipas, collected water samples and conducted basic biology and chemistry experiments.
As part of the project, students tested samples for water-quality indicators such as dissolved oxygen, nitrate levels and salinity.
Sharone Muñoz, who coordinates the initiative through the Rio Grande International Study Center, said the project gives students and educators an active role in water monitoring.
“When people think about water testing and water monitoring, they think it's federal, state or local agencies doing this. But it's actually students and educators,” Muñoz said.
The work comes amid longstanding concerns about water quality along the Rio Grande.
Related: Binational effort is fixing chronic pollution problem on the Rio Grande
A federal report released in 2024 documented E. coli readings as high as 240,000 per 100 milliliters at monitoring sites downstream of Laredo, nearly 2,000 times the state's recreational water-quality benchmark.
Drought can also worsen water quality by concentrating contaminants and contributing to algae growth.
Related: How the RGV is preparing for when the Rio Grande runs dry
Since then, wastewater infrastructure repairs in neighboring Nuevo Laredo have significantly reduced sewage discharges into the river.
For Muñoz, the program is about more than collecting water samples.
“We're giving them the opportunity to be part of the change and to understand why water monitoring and water testing is so important, not just for them, but for everyone else,” Muñoz said.
