As you walk along the Tijuana River Valley, it’s hard not to smell the pungent smell of sewage, effluent flowing its way down the valley toward the Pacific Ocean.
It’s been a problem for decades as Tijuana’s sewage infrastructure has failed to keep up with a city that seemingly grew to two million residents overnight. The system constantly spews untreated raw sewage that eventually makes its way north of the border.
Rep. Scott Peters has called on Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila to provide updates on the status of projects in Mexico to reduce wastewater pollution, including the construction of a new sewage treatment facility in Tijuana. Mexico has pledged to spend $144 million in 2022 to build sanitation infrastructure to stop the sewage outflow that frequently forces beaches to close in San Diego County.
It’s been more than 550 days since the ocean water at Imperial Beach has been safe for swimmers and surfers.
Between wastewater treatment plant repairs and expansions, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, but city leaders say all hands on deck are needed to make progress.
A nearly half-billion-dollar investment in new sewage treatment facilities in Tijuana could clean up perpetually polluted beaches in San Diego, U.S. and Mexican officials say.
Officials from both countries signed a treaty through the International Boundary and Water Commission that commits to funding new sanitation projects during a ceremony at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve in Imperial Beach on Thursday.
Rain fell on San Diego Monday. It wasn’t a lot of rain – an Accuweather forecast called for “a brief morning shower or two” with an anticipated rainfall of 0.01 inches.
But it was enough to prompt a beach closure at the Tijuana Slough, just south of Imperial Beach. That section of the beach is closed whenever the Tijuana River is flowing.
Cross-border sewage spills have been an issue in South County for decades.
The San Diego region last year secured $300 million to plug a decades-long wastewater pollution crises in waters that snake across the U.S.-Mexico border and dump raw sewage, trash and sediment into the Pacific Ocean.
On Tuesday, Environmental Protection Agency officials held a virtual public meeting attended by more than 130 people to reveal 10 project proposals being considered to fix crumbing wastewater infrastructure at the border using the $300 million earmarked by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
If the San Diego-Tijuana region were a human body, it’d have the stomach flu: Bad stuff is coming out of both ends. But instead of tackling the complicated source of the infection, the border towns are fighting over where to put a Band-Aid.
Like a giant garbage disposal, three huge new green pipes sit on Mexico’s side of the border, shredding trash in the Tijuana River that would otherwise jam this critical piece of the city’s wastewater system that caused spills on the United States side.
We’re letting millions of gallons of sewage-contaminated Tijuana River water go to waste by tossing it to the Pacific Ocean.
That’s the opinion of two competing forces – one from the United States and another from Mexico – that are rethinking the region’s oldest and dirtiest problem, imagining it instead as a moneymaking opportunity.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last week a bill that will require the state’s Environmental Protection Agency to create a Watershed Action Plan for the Tijuana River Valley.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
