US, Mexico agree to stop sewage flow from Tijuana to SoCal

A new agreement between the United States and Mexico will stop the flow of sewage from Tijuana into Southern California through the Tijuana River. For years, sewage crossing the border has resulted in beach closures and caused people to get sick.

Administrator Lee Zeldin of the Environmental Protection Agency and his Mexican counterpart, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, officially signed a memorandum of understanding addressing the chronic environmental calamity on Thursday, July 24.

“What the residents of Southern California need and deserve, what they’ve been waiting for, for too long, isn’t just a solution that is a Band-Aid for that moment, but a permanent, 100% solution,” Zeldin said during a press briefing.

Mexico to pay for project

The agreement calls for Mexico to spend $93 million to complete water infrastructure projects under an expedited timeline. The agreement contains a construction schedule for the next two years.

In addition, both countries agreed to develop new initiatives that would ensure the work is completed.

“This is something that requires total follow-through,” Zeldin said. “I would like to see projects get even further stress-tested as we move forward, wherever we can get anything done faster.”

Mexico will immediately begin diverting 10 million gallons per day of treated sewage from two wastewater treatment plants to sites further upstream. Mexico also agreed to rehabilitate a wastewater collection site.

The issue at hand

Zeldin said that when he visited Navy Seals in April, he saw – and smelled – the sewage flooding in. Fixing the problem immediately became a priority.

“What we felt leaving there as a team at EPA and with the U.S. government was this burning desire at the Trump administration to dedicate a tremendous amount of energy, of time, to make sure that the residents of Southern California would be receiving this good news as quickly as possible,” Zeldin said.

Every day, millions of gallons of sewage spill into the river, and this problem has only worsened as Tijuana’s population has increased.

Trent Biggs, a professor at San Diego State University, told Straight Arrow News that the sewage used to flow only during storms.

“But for almost three years now, we’ve seen ongoing sewage flow during dry weather conditions, which is a reflection of damage to some sewage collection infrastructure in Mexico, as well as a general falling behind of the infrastructure, both in the U.S. and Mexico, to keep up with population growth and increased sewage generation,” Biggs said.

Imperial Beach, located near the border, has been closed for more than 1,000 consecutive days because of contaminated waters. The beach also tested positive for unsafe levels of fecal matter on 97% of testing days.

Exposure can cause infections and other health issues in humans. It also poses a danger to marine life.

“The dissolved oxygen content in the Tijuana estuary has bottomed out at zero for weeks and months at a time, posing real problems for the wildlife, including mass die-off of fish and sharks and things like that,” Biggs said.

US-Mexico cooperation

This agreement comes even at a time of strained relations between the neighboring countries because of an ongoing trade war and the movement of fentanyl across the border.

“This is the first agreement that is being reached and announced between the U.S. government and the Mexican government since these two administrations have taken office, and we’re very proud of that,” Zeldin said.

Biggs said scientists, environmental managers and government employees have long sought a solution.

“Everybody has known that this has been a problem for years,” Biggs said. “Whatever set of conditions, political and economic conditions, sort of aligned to make this possible, it’s certainly a welcome development.”