EL PASO, Texas -- With tires and trash lying around, you would think the Rio Grande River was a dumping ground. The stretch of the river along Paisano in El Paso is littered with debris.

“It’s very ugly,” said Jose Holguin, of central El Paso. “A lot of trash that people throw, tires, dead animals.

The U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission said trash turns up in the Rio Grande every year when irrigation is shut off. The commission says that’s when all the debris that was hidden under the water shows up.

Tires that lay along the river are a breeding ground for West Nile bearing mosquitoes. Yet the commission is focusing its attention on other issues, like raising river levees.

“As we are able to get permits to do the work, and funding to do the work, we go in and clean out the sediment,” U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission spokeswoman Sally Spener said.

The commission has made some improvements. Recently, they removed 119,000 cubic yards of debris in a two mile stretch of the river.