Parque Baja California should be the ideal community park. Mature trees provide shade and benches give visitors a comfortable place to sit and feel the ocean breeze.
But running through the middle of the park is a drainage culvert with water flowing year round.
Luis Ramirez leapt onto the roof of his bright blue water truck to fill the plastic tank that by day’s end would empty into an assortment of buckets, barrels and cisterns in 100 homes.
It was barely 11 a.m. and Ramirez had many more stops to make on the hilly, grey fringes of Tijuana, a sprawling, industrial border city in northwestern Mexico where trucks or “pipas” like Ramirez’s provide the only drinking water for many people.
“Each time, it gets farther and farther where we have to go,” he said, blaming the city’s water problems on drought and population growth, before jumping into the driver’s seat next to 16-year-old assistant Daniel Alvarez.
Among the last cities downstream to receive water from the shrinking Colorado River, Tijuana is staring down a water crisis driven also by aging, inefficient infrastructure and successive governments that have done little to prepare the city for diminishing water in the region.
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.”
Rep. Scott Peters has called on Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila to provide updates on the status of projects in Mexico to reduce wastewater pollution, including the construction of a new sewage treatment facility in Tijuana. Mexico has pledged to spend $144 million in 2022 to build sanitation infrastructure to stop the sewage outflow that frequently forces beaches to close in San Diego County.
It’s been more than 550 days since the ocean water at Imperial Beach has been safe for swimmers and surfers.
Between wastewater treatment plant repairs and expansions, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, but city leaders say all hands on deck are needed to make progress.
San Diego has suffered long enough from the impacts of trans-border sewage flow, and sanitation efforts must move forward, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, said Monday during a visit to a border wastewater treatment plant.
The U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission treatment plant sits on the border between Mexico and the United States in San Diego.
“For far too long, toxic waste and raw sewage have flowed across the border into Southern California, bringing health hazards and environmental threats into our own backyards,” Padilla said. “This pollution continues to contaminate Southern California’s air and water, depriving communities of outdoor recreation and economic opportunities.”
As of Friday morning, more than 600 colonias were without running water in Tijuana and Rosarito, where residents say service has been spotty since last year.
Facing the possibility of running out of water, Tijuana’s State Commission for Public Services, CESPT, turned to the San Diego County Water Authority for help.
Agreements in place between Mexico and the United States allow for water deliveries in times of emergency or severe drought.
Quick action by the San Diego County Water Authority and its partner agencies is helping maintain water service in Tijuana after problems with the Mexican border city’s aqueduct began in December.
Emergency water delivery from a cross-border pipeline in Otay Mesa began the first week of January and is scheduled to continue until the end of February.
There’s a problem with Tijuana’s lifeline to its single water source – the Colorado River– which forced it make more, costly emergency water purchases from California.
The San Diego County Water Authority recently learned that problems emerged with Tijuana’s aqueduct in December, according to a press release this week. Tijuana requested emergency water from San Diego on Jan. 2, which the Water Authority expedited through a typical months-long approval process involving water agencies that also have to sign-off on emergency orders from Mexico.
Fast action by the San Diego County Water Authority and its partners is helping maintain water service in Tijuana after problems with the city’s aqueduct emerged in December.
Emergency water deliveries started last week after a coordinated effort between the Water Authority, Otay Water District, and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The typical multi-month approval process was compressed into a few days to avoid additional water supply shortages in Tijuana.
