The Tijuana River sewage emergency has reached the state level once again.
All 18 mayors in San Diego County have sent another letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking for his help to address the ongoing sewage and chemical pollutants flowing into the ocean from the river.
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).
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.
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.
San Diego’s border region is being pummeled every day by massive cross-border flows of sewage-tainted water.
Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina looked at the river flowing through a South County valley on a recent morning.
“This should be dry — dry weather. This should be dry,” Dedina said as he looked at the flowing water. “There should be a pump station on.”
The water flowing in the Tijuana River Valley comes from Mexico and it is on its way to the ocean. On this day, 27 million gallons of sewage-tainted water, which also carries a slurry of toxic chemicals, runs untreated into the United States.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
