For decades South Bay communities have faced the repercussions of failing sewage and wastewater facilities on both sides of the border.
The Tijuana River sewage crisis in San Diego has something in common with a historic water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan: a contractor accused in lawsuits of making matters worse.
Gov. Gavin Newsom says the sewage crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border does not qualify as an emergency under state statute and that is why he has not issued a declaration. So members of the California Coastal Commission, following a visit Wednesday to the South Bay area affected by the ongoing toxic pollution, agreed to consider asking President Joe Biden to proclaim one.
The San Diego Unified Port District is adding its voice to the call for a state of emergency over cross-border sewage flows in the South Bay.
The port sent a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom asking him to take the issue seriously.
Saying this is “a pivotal moment that calls for resolute action,” all 18 mayors in San Diego County sent a letter last week to Gov. Gavin Newsom imploring him to declare a state of emergency over the decades-long sewage crisis at the border.
Sewage from Tijuana will continue to foul South County beaches unchecked for at least a year before repairs can be made to an aging federal wastewater treatment plant at the U.S.-Mexico border, officials with the binational agency that operates the facility said Wednesday.
The Coronado and Silver Strand shorelines are under advisory again after water bacteria levels exceeded state standards over the weekend as projects to address the Tijuana sewage crisis trudge forward on both sides of the border. In Mexico, a ruptured 42-inch wastewater pipe is expected to be repaired by November. It ruptured last summer, adding to the flow of untreated wastewater from Tijuana into coastal waters and across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Paloma Aguirre has fought to clean up the sewage-plagued waters of Imperial Beach for the better part of the last two decades — first as an activist and most recently as the city’s first elected woman of Mexican descent. The city’s newly minted mayor says her highest priority next year will be working with officials in Baja California to stem the pollution that routinely spills over the border and floats up the coastline.
