The U.S. Can’t Control the Tijuana Sewage Faucet
The United States and Mexico disagree on the source of a weeks-long sewage spill at the border, but an investigation into the cause demonstrated what those working on the border already know — the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant in San Diego is in desperate need of repair.
As of Friday, U.S. officials at the International Boundary and Water Commission — a binational agency that works on border water treaties — believed the millions of gallons of raw sewage that escaped the border wastewater system earlier this month came from a crack in a big concrete pipe in Mexico called the International Collector, which carries sewage from Tijuana wastewater mains to the U.S. treatment plant. (That pipeline is old and by now has surpassed its useful life, according to a 2019 report by the North American Development Bank.)
