With sewage gushing into sea, US and Mexican border towns plead for help
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[July 17, 2024]
By Daniel Trotta
IMPERIAL BEACH, California/TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Each day,
millions of gallons of sewage cascade through a canyon and into the
Pacific Ocean just south of the U.S.-Mexican border. As any surfer in
San Diego knows, summer swells that come from the south will push the
toxic brew north.
Meanwhile, millions more gallons of treated and untreated sewage trickle
down the Tijuana River and into the sea just north of the border.
When the wind and currents conspire, the odor of fecal bacteria fouls
the otherwise quaint San Diego County town of Imperial Beach, where
Mayor Paloma Aguirre calls the discharges "the biggest environmental and
public health disaster in the nation that nobody knows of."
Were it the result of a hurricane or wildfire, rather than decades of
neglect, the crisis might warrant a declaration of emergency, freeing
recovery funds to address environmental damage, the threat to public
health, and loss of tourism.
Instead, beachlovers and politicians are agonizing over the protracted
efforts to upgrade infrastructure on both sides of the border.
The International Wastewater Treatment Plant, an overworked and
underfunded plant built on the U.S. side of the frontier to treat
Mexican sewage, has buckled under an increased volume that has been
piped across the border the past two years, but plant managers say it
should return to normal operations in August.
The Mexican state of Baja California says the most crucial repairs to
Tijuana's battered sewage infrastructure will be completed soon after,
potentially ending the worst of the spills. It plans to invest $530
million on sewage infrastructure from 2023 to 2027.
"We are not just polluting U.S. waters but those of Mexico as well,"
said Kurt Honold, a former mayor of Tijuana and now Baja California's
secretary of economy and innovation. "Our kids want to swim on the
beaches of Tijuana and Rosarito without getting sick."
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Immediately north of the U.S.-Mexican border wall that descends into the
sea, San Diego County health officials have effectively closed the beach
for more than three years straight.
Further north near the Imperial Beach pier, bright yellow signs warning
"Keep out of Water" have been posted on and off since 2021, depriving
surfers of waves and Imperial Beach of crucial summer tourism revenue.
Interviewed on the sunsplashed beach, the Imperial Beach mayor, a body
boarder herself, said that if the crisis were affecting a white, wealthy
town it would have been solved long ago by state and federal officials.
"We are primarily a working-class community; we're primarily a brown
community. We're a border community," said Aguirre, an environmentalist
before entering politics.
STRAINED INFRASTRUCTURE
The international plant belongs to the International Boundary and Water
Commission, a body governed by U.S.-Mexican treaty agreements.
When functioning properly, it treats 25 million gallons a day (1,095
liters per second).
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![](../images/071724PIX/news_x52.jpg)
Raw sewage flows along the Tijuana river located between the primary
and secondary borders next to Tijuana, Mexico in San Diego,
California, U.S., June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Bake/File Photo
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But the plant has worn down under strain caused by Tijuana
infrastructure breakdowns in 2022 and Tropical Storm Hilary a year
ago, said Morgan Rogers, area operations manager for the IBWC's San
Diego field office. Sewage treatment is down to 22.7 million gallons
per day this year.
"Every gallon we treat here is a gallon that doesn't go into the
ocean, whether it's in the river or down south in Tijuana," Rogers
said.
Rogers led Reuters on a recent tour, when only one of the plant's
five primary tanks - each open air with nearly the capacity of an
Olympic swimming pool - was working properly. As he spoke, a large
bubble gurgled to the surface.
"Ugh, you can see some flow going through here," Rogers said. "But
we're making some good progress."
In addition to the $30 million upgrade, the plant is about to
undergo a $400 million expansion with federal funds to double
capacity, Rogers said, but it will need another $200 million to
complete the job.
TIJUANA STRUGGLES
About 6 miles (10 km) south of the border, a tunnel beneath the
coastal highway releases wastewater with the fury of a dam that has
opened its spillway.
It is outflow from San Antonio de los Buenos, Tijuana's broken-down
sewage treatment plant.
Mexico says a new $33.3 million plant under construction is
scheduled to come online by Sept. 30.
For now, just how much is pouring into the ocean remains in dispute.
The IBWC estimates the flow at 35 million to 45 million gallons per
day of raw sewage.
Baja California says the plant is discharging 23 million gallons per
day (1,000 liters per second) of sewage that is minimally treated
with chlorine. Mexico's National Water Commission puts the figure at
27 million gallons per day (1,200 liters per second).
In addition, roughly 50 million gallons per day of
sewage-contaminated water flows from the Tijuana River toward
Imperial Beach, according to an IBWC river gauge.
Around half is raw sewage with the remainder a mix of treated
sewage, groundwater and potable water from Tijuana's leaky pipes,
Rogers estimated.
Honold said Tijuana's state-run infrastructure has suffered from
decades of neglect as the city's population soared from 65,000 in
1950 to some 2 million today.
Then Baja California's Governor Marina del Pilar Avila, elected in
2021, made sewage repairs a priority, Honold said.
"We're sorry," Honold said. "We're going to fix it, and we are
fixing it."
(Reporting and writing by Daniel Trotta in Imperial Beach and
Tijuana; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City;
Editing by Donna Bryson and Aurora Ellis)
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