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Biden Administration Seeks $310 Million for Border Sewage Treatment Fix

The Biden administration has set aside $310 million to expand a wastewater treatment in South Bay as part of an ongoing effort to tackle a cross-border pollution and sewage crisis.

The South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant was included in the emergency supplemental funding request at the request of a group of lawmakers led by Rep. Scott Peters last month.

Scripps Oceanography to Develop Sewage Contamination Tool, Amid Calls For Emergency Declaration

In front of Imperial Beach’s deserted shoreline dotted with red “warning” signs, members of San Diego’s legislative delegation announced Friday that $3 million from the state budget will fund a new model aimed at more accurately predicting sewage contamination days in advance at South County beaches.

Opinion: How Can EPA Care More About Minor Sewage Woes in San Francisco than Disaster in San Diego?

It was awesome to see so many local elected officials finally have their “aha!” moment on the South Bay sewage nightmare in June and complain so loudly and uniformly that the federal government’s response has been woefully inadequate. But any inclination to start handing out kudos should be tempered by a reality that in retrospect seems unfathomable: For years, many of these same leaders essentially accepted broken Tijuana sewage infrastructure constantly fouling our coast from the Mexican border to Coronado.

Opinion: Biden Should Declare an Emergency on Tijuana Sewage in San Diego. Newsom Should Demand It.

Local leaders are finally losing patience with the federal government’s anemic response to San Diego’s environmental nightmare. Now it’s the governor’s turn. For decades, an appalling aspect of life in the San Diego region has been the constant specter of untreated sewage from broken infrastructure in Tijuana flowing into the Pacific and fouling beaches, marshes and coastal areas on the U.S. side of the border from San Ysidro to Coronado.

Supervisors Declare State of Emergency on Cross-Border Pollution, Sewage

San Diego County supervisors unanimously approved a proclamation Tuesday declaring a state of emergency due to pollution and sewage flowing across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Board Chairwoman Nora Vargas and Vice Chair Terra Lawson-Remer introduced the proclamation, which asks Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden to issue similar declarations, “suspend red tape that may hinder response efforts, and expedite access to federal resources for San Diego County.”

Supervisors Consider Emergency Declaration to Jump-Start Border Pollution Cleanup

Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas and Vice Chair Terra Lawson-Remer are asking the board to declare a local state of emergency over cross-border pollution that has fouled San Diego beaches, in hopes of to expediting cleanup and prompting a federal emergency declaration.

Imperial Beach Seeks Federal Assistance in Ceasing Ongoing Pollution from Tijuana River Sewage Spill

Imperial Beach urgently needs federal funding to put an end to the Tijuana River’s ongoing sewage spill that’s kept portions of the city’s beaches closed, Mayor Paloma Aguirre wrote in a letter to the White House.

Seeking a federal state of emergency status for the continued pollution, Mayor Aguirre called on the Biden administration to declare the emergency for the shoreline of Imperial Beach and the Tijuana River Valley. Such a proclamation would expedite funding and projects across federal agencies to tackle the source of the issue.

Sewage Flows Continue in Wake of Tijuana Sewer System Collapse

U.S. and Mexican officials are doing their best to cope with two major sewage line breaks in a Tijuana canyon.

As a result, Mexico shut down the pump station in the Tijuana River channel allowing more than 30 million gallons of sewage-tainted water to cross the border into the United States every day.

Environment Report: San Diego Can’t Spend the $300 Million It Won to Fight Tijuana Sewage Border Spills

Even though the federal government gave San Diego $300 million to alleviate the decades-long problem of Tijuana sewage spilling over the U.S.-Mexico border, and even though everyone seems to generally agree it should be spent on a bigger border wastewater treatment plant, and even though all the necessary parties seem to be working harmoniously on the plan, the money can’t be spent.

That’s due to some sticky bureaucratic red tape: Congress needs to pass, and the president needs to sign legislation allowing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to give that $300 million check (secured under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement) to the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission.

Reporter Notebook: Will EPA Fix for Tijuana River Keep Pace with Growth?

Reports of Tijuana sewage leaking over the border into the San Diego region stretch back at least to the 1930s. The fundamental issue hasn’t changed all that much over time. Plumbing still isn’t keeping pace with population growth. Water officials in Baja California have frequently pointed out that sewage collection in Tijuana far exceeds that in many parts of Mexico.