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Ongoing Spill in Mexico Flooding Tijuana River with Millions of Gallons of Raw Sewage

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

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.

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This River Is Too Toxic To Touch, And People Live Right Next To It

/in , /by /Desert Sun by Ian James

The Río Nuevo flows north from Mexico into the United States, passing through a gap in the border fence. The murky green water reeks of sewage and carries soapsuds, pieces of trash and a load of toxic chemicals from Mexicali, a city filled with factories that manufacture products from electronics to auto parts.

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IB Students Monitor Water Pollution North Of Tijuana

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Gustavo Solis

Josh Hill, a marine biology teacher at Mar Vista High School, lost count of the number of times he’s gotten sick from swimming in the ocean at Imperial Beach. “It’s just kind of sad that we have this awesome natural resource that we don’t get to use,” he said. He and a group of students are raising awareness about water pollution by taking weekly water samples of the ocean and publishing their results online. Every Thursday, Hill and his students collect water from the south end of Seacoast Drive and the Imperial Beach Pier.

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Painters Sentenced for Dumping Lead Paint into San Diego Storm Drain System

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune

he CEO and two employees of a Riverside County-based painting company were sentenced after pleading guilty to contaminating San Diego’s storm water system by power-washing painted curbs and allowing toxic lead paint chips to flow into storm drains, City Attorney Mara Elliott announced Friday. The trio were placed on probation and ordered to pay more than$12,000 in fines and restitution, Elliott said. Ochoa Striping Services Inc. was contracted to sandblast paint from curbs in a Del Cerro neighborhood, Elliott said. That method of paint removal would have allowed workers to safely clean up and dispose of hazardous material.

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California’s Looming Water Pollution Problem

/in , /by /Pacific Standard Magazine (Santa Barbara)by Kate Wheeling

In the winter of 2001, Tom Frantz and a friend were cruising in his pick-up truck along a stretch of Highway 33 in Kern County, California. Known as the Petroleum Highway, this particular stretch of the roadway cuts across some of the state’s largest oil fields. Frantz, a mustachioed man whose wispy white hair is usually hidden beneath a beige fedora, was born and raised in Kern County; he was used to seeing pumpjacks bobbing up and down on the west side of the region, but on this cool winter day, a plume of steam in the distance caught his eye.

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Judge Allows South Bay Lawsuit Over Tijuana Sewage Overflows To Move Ahead

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Kristina Davis

A lawsuit brought by South Bay cities alleging the federal government is not doing enough to prevent and treat the flow of Tijuana sewage into the U.S. can move forward, a San Diego federal judge ordered this week. The ruling, filed Wednesday, comes a day after U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller toured pumps and water-capture basins in the Tijuana River Valley to get a first-hand look at the issue. The order allows the lawsuit to proceed on claims that the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission violated the Clean Water Act by allowing wastewater from canyon water-capture basins to spill into the surrounding environment without the proper permit.

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In Rare Move, Federal Judge Presiding Over Tijuana Sewage Lawsuit Tours Border

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

Federal court judge Jeffrey T. Miller toured the Tijuana River Valley for several hours on Tuesday to observe pumps and canyon collectors along the border intended to prevent sewage from spilling into San Diego. The unusual move comes as the result of a contentious legal battle in which Miller must decide whether the Trump administration is doing enough to stop sewage that routinely pours into the United States from Mexico. The cities of Imperial Beach and Chula Vista, as well as the Port of San Diego, sued the federal government in March, alleging violations of the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

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Lindo Lake In Lakeside Suddenly Turns Bright Green

/in , /by /CBS 8by Brandon Lewis

Beautiful Lindo Lake in Lakeside is looking a bit different these days. People living nearby want to know why the lake seems to be a bright shade of green. Mindy Collier and other Lakeside residents who frequent the lake know all too well about the algae-like affair. “It seems to have improved a little bit,” said Collier. “It looks a little better.” The lake is only about three feet deep; combined with hot summers and slow-moving waters, it’s prime blooming grounds for blue-green algae, which, despite its name, is actually a bacteria.

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Chula Vista Joins Legal Battle Against Monsanto Over PCB Water Pollution

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

Chula Vista has joined the city of San Diego and a number of other West Coast cities in an attempt to force chemical giant Monsanto to pay tens of millions to clean up waterways polluted with a class of cancer-linked chemicals, known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The city filed a lawsuit against the St. Louis-based corporation on Tuesday alleging it should help pay for costs associated with cleaning up PCB in its municipal stormwater system.

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Imperial Beach, Federal Government to Face-off in Court Over Tijuana Sewage Pollution

/in /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

South Bay cities are preparing to go head-to-head with the federal government this week in a legal battle that could force the Trump administration to plug sewage spilling from Tijuana into San Diego.

Local officials filed the lawsuit in March after demanding for more than a year that federal infrastructure along the border be beefed up to ensure that flows from Mexico are captured before they foul San Diego wetlands and beaches.

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