A report released Thursday by the International Boundary and Water Commission found a significant presence of wastewater in border channels in the Tijuana River Basin impacting San Diego.
In the report, “Binational Water Quality Study of the Tijuana River and Adjacent Canyons and Drains,” scientists from the United States and Mexico collected samples from of seven transboundary channels.
Baja California Gov. Jaime Bonilla is involved in a war of words with a California mayor over cleanup efforts along the Tijuana River Valley, which lies between Tijuana and the city of San Diego.
For decades, raw sewage, trash and debris have flowed from south of the border into the U.S.
Most of those materials, especially the raw sewage, end up in the Pacific Ocean, forcing the closure of beaches in cities like Imperial Beach where over the last nine months, beaches have been closed 180 days due to high bacteria levels in the ocean water.
Emphasizing the “unprecedented” bipartisan cooperation between local and state governments, Border Patrol and the International Boundary & Water Commission, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced short-term projects Wednesday to plug the international sewage flow across the U.S.-Mexico border.
For more than two decades, cleaning up the Tijuana River has been one of my top priorities. The wastewater, trash and sediment that continues to flow into San Diego County are a danger to public health and our economy and it must be addressed.
Over the past year we’ve made real strides to fix the problem of cross-border pollution. And last week’s introduction of the Border Water Quality Restoration and Protection Act is another step toward achieving that goal.
Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, and other local Congress members introduced the Border Water Quality Restoration and Protection Act of 2020 Friday to address pollution along the U.S.-Mexico border and improve the water quality of both the Tijuana and New rivers.
Mexican officials say there may be relief soon for San Diego South Bay residents living with massive daily sewage flows from Tijuana.
The sewage-tainted flows routinely hit 25 million gallons a day. Some days earlier this year, the flow topped 70 million gallons.
Californians are pushing pause on federal lawsuits against the International Boundary Water Commission, the agency that’s supposed to deal with sewage-filled stormwater rolling into the U.S. from the Tijuana cliffs under a treaty between the two countries.
San Diego officials are optimistic that a long-term fix to stop persistent cross-border sewage flows is close. There is now money available and more than two dozen projects are already vetted, but it could still be years before the majority of the flows stop.
The term “crisis on the border” typically refers to immigration issues or drugs being smuggled into the country. But it has one more meaning, as we discovered, when we went to the border in early February: tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage that spill every year into the Tijuana River on the Mexican side and flow across the border right into Southern California, polluting the land, air, and sea.
It was an immense relief Tuesday when Democratic California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris and San Diego-area House members Susan Davis, Mike Levin, Scott Peters and Juan Vargas jointly announced that the Environmental Protection Agency was formally proceeding with a $300 million plan to fix broken sewage infrastructure that has allowed sewage from the Tijuana River to frequently foul South County beaches. While it seems that amount won’t be sufficient to address all the improvements and repairs that are needed, it amounts to recognition that the U.S. government has an obligation to protect San Diego’s beaches.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
