The United States-Mexico border region is enduring the latest in a series of massive cross-border sewage tainted spills.
Federal officials in charge of monitoring the trans-border sewage situation on the U.S. side of the border said nearly 8 million gallons of tainted water flowed crossed the border in the Tijuana River channel.
The flow crossed the border from 7 p.m. Sunday evening through 10 a.m. Monday.
Elected leaders from around the San Diego region met with the Trump administration on Tuesday to ask for help stopping the sewage-tainted water that regularly flows in the Tijuana River across the border with Mexico.
Specifically, regional leaders tried to persuade federal authorities to fund a more than $400-million plan to capture and treat the pollution — which has shuttered shorelines in Imperial Beach on more than 200 days this year alone.
Bonnie Ludka, PhD, of Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO), spoke to about 40 people at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve June 15 as part of the their bi-monthly speaker series. Ludka presented the results of her research into the movement of beach sand along the coast and the impact of beach nourishment on the closure of the Tijuana River in 2016. Southern California beaches are experiencing a sand deficit. She explained that beach sand is normally created by sediment flowing from rivers and cliff erosion. Unfortunately, river sand that would normally flow into the ocean is now trapped behind dams that are present in every southern California river except the Santa Margarita river near Oceanside.
Officials met in Imperial Beach Friday to discuss the sewage pollution that continues to plague South Bay shorelines — shuttering beaches more than 100 days every year. The event was billed as an “inaugural dialogue,” which in the future will include a host of other binational issues, including climate change and commerce. Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) and others met on Friday with Baja California officials to discuss future collaboration on how to address Tijuana’s lack of wastewater infrastructure and the potential for California to help with funding. “It’s a statewide concern elevated at the highest levels of state government,” Gloria told a crowd of concerned residents and elected officials, largely from Imperial Beach and Coronado.
Cross-border sewage flows in the Tijuana River reaching Imperial Beach are in the news and on the minds of concerned citizens of the region. Since pollution has been finding its way into the Tijuana River Valley for 40 years, it’s remarkable that it still manages to make the headlines. To be clear, I don’t condone it. I’m dismayed by sewage on a river (any river), its impact on water quality, as well as on public health. But that’s urban life in developing countries and emerging economies throughout the world.
A sewage spill that federal officials said started Monday night south of the border continues to flood the Tijuana River with millions of gallons of raw effluent. A ruptured collector pipe in southeast Tijuana is leaking roughly 7 million gallons a day of sewage into the river, according to the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission. The IBWC said utility officials in Baja would attempt to divert the flows Wednesday from the Tijuana River back into CESPT’s wastewater treatment system.
The equivalent of more than six million gallons a day of raw sewage has been spilling into the Tijuana River since Monday night, according to federal officials. The U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, or IBWC, said Tuesday that counterparts in Mexico informed the agency that the cause of the sewage leak was a ruptured collector pipe. Federal officials said the aging collector underwent millions of dollars in upgrades over the last year but had yet to be fully rehabilitated.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
