Problems
The Tijuana River is an intermittent river, 120 mi (195 km) long, near the Pacific coast of northern Baja California state in northwestern Mexico and Southern California in the western United States. But the river is heavily polluted with raw sewage from the city of Tijuana, Mexico.
Causes of sewage water crisis
Over the years, Tijuana, Mexico, has experienced tremendous population and industrial growth, along with rapid urbanization, which has put a strain on the aging Mexican sewage infrastructure in the region to meet the expanding needs. The emerging sewage infrastructure inadequacies have created recurring sewage pollution problems on both sides of the California - Mexico border. At times, sewage generated on the Mexico side of the watershed travels north into California through the Tijuana River or other cross-border canyon tributaries in the Tijuana River Valley. The sewage flows degrade water quality in the Tijuana River Estuary and adjacent beach coastal waters, posing a significant public health risk to residents and visitors along both sides of the border. A tributary of the river starts in the arid mountains of San Diego County, where it is dammed a couple of times for local water supply. The river then crosses the border into Mexico, where it picks up trash, including old tires, many plastics, and raw sewage that empties into the Tijuana estuary on the U.S. side. When rains arrive, the problem of sewage and trash going into the estuary is worse, affecting the largest remaining salt marsh and bird refuge in Southern California. It’s been the Mexican government’s official position that once the sewage spills over to the U.S. side, it’s out of their jurisdiction. Another aspect of the sewage issue, separate from the Tijuana River problem, pertains to a Mexican treatment plant that has experienced frequent malfunctions over the past decade. When the plant is operational, located six miles below the U.S. border at Punta Bandera, its discharge fails to meet the water quality standards set by Mexico and certainly needs to meet the standards established by the United States. Consequently, this sewage has the potential to contaminate beaches as far as 20 miles north, including the renowned Hotel Del Coronado.
Gallery
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Timelines
2022
Officials from both countries signed a treaty through the International Boundary and Water Commission that commits to funding new sanitation projects. The agreement pledged about $350 million in U.S. spending and $144 million from the Mexican government to replace failing sewage treatment facilities in Tijuana.
2020
The San Diego Water Board issued Investigative Order No. R9-2020-0030 required the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) to submit technical reports on the investigation of pollution, contamination, and nuisance from transboundary flows in the Tijuana River Valley. The required comprehensive technical and investigative monitoring reports aimed to identify the extent, magnitude, durations, trends, and risks associated with pathogens, toxic pollutants, and trash discharged through infrastructure owned, operated, and controlled by the U.S. Section of the IBWC.
2019
A powerful group of city and county regulatory and interest groups sued the International Boundary and Water Commission, a U.S. and Mexican governmental organization.
2017
A disaster was compounded when a Mexican sewage pipe broke and was not reported or quickly fixed. Several dozen U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, surfers, and untold numbers of migrants were affected by contact with sewage.
1999
The South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (SBIWTP), located on a 75-acre site near the international border and provides for secondary treatment of Tijuana sewage, was completed.
1990
Under the terms of Commission Minute No. 270, the Government of Mexico constructed a new sewage conveyance system generally following the alignment of the 1965 system and a new treatment plant at a point directly 4.0 miles south of the international boundary. The system consisted of a new Pumping Plant No. 1 near the border in Tijuana with a design pumping capacity of 64 mg and an average daily operational pumping capacity of 48 mg.
1935
U.S. and Mexican officials came together to construct a transborder sewer system, disposing of Tijuana’s wastewater through an ocean outfall pipe just north of the boundary, off the coast of southern San Diego County. By the decade's end, the problem appeared to be under control.