by by Daniel Trotta
IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif./TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Every day, millions of gallons of sewage cascade through a canyon and into the Pacific Ocean just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. As any surfer in San Diego knows, summer swells coming from the south will bring the toxic brew north.
Meanwhile, millions more gallons of treated and untreated sewage flow down the Tijuana River and into the sea just north of the border.
When the wind and currents conspire, the smell of fecal bacteria pollutes the San Diego County town of Imperial Beach, where Mayor Paloma Aguirre calls “the greatest environmental and public health disaster the nation has ever known.” nobody about it.”
If it were the result of a hurricane or wildfire, rather than decades of neglect, the crisis could require an emergency declaration, freeing up recovery funds to address environmental damage, the threat to the health of the communities, and with the loss of tourism.
Instead, beachgoers and politicians are fueling the long-running efforts to upgrade infrastructure on both sides of the border.
The International Wastewater Treatment Plant, an overworked and underfunded plant built on the US side of the border to treat Mexican sewage, has grappled with an increased amount piped across the border in the past two years, but says plant managers that it should return to the ground. normal operations in August.
The Mexican state of Baja California says critical repairs to Tijuana’s battered sewer infrastructure will be completed soon, potentially ending the worst of the spills. It plans to invest $530 million on sewer infrastructure from 2023 to 2027.
“We are not only polluting US waters but Mexican waters as well,” said Kurt Honold, former mayor of Tijuana and now Baja California’s secretary of economy and innovation. “Our children want to swim on the beaches of Tijuana and Rosarito without getting sick.”
Just north of the US-Mexico border wall that juts 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 the Water” have been put up and out since 2021, providing surfers and Imperial Beach with vital summer tourism revenue.
In an interview on the sunny beach, the mayor of Imperial Beach, a body boarder herself, said that if the crisis was affecting a wealthy white town it would have been solved long ago by state and federal officials.
“We’re 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 US-Mexico treaty agreements.
When operating properly, it treats 25 million gallons per day (1,095 liters per second).
But the plant has been put under pressure by the failure of Tijuana’s infrastructure in 2022 and Tropical Storm Hilary a year ago, said Morgan Rory, area operations manager for IBWC’s San Diego field office. Sewage treatment is down to 22.7 million gallons per day this year.
“Every gallon we spend 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, where 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 are making 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 another $200 million will be needed to complete the job.
TIJUANA STRUGGEE
About 6 miles (10 km) south of the border, a tunnel below the coastal highway releases wastewater with the fury of a dam that has opened to spill.
It’s outflow from San Antonio de los Buenos, Tijuana’s broken sewage treatment plant.
Mexico says a new $33.3 million plant under construction is scheduled to come online by Sept. 30.
Currently, there is still a dispute about how much is pouring into the ocean. The IBWC estimates the flow at 35 million to 45 million gallons per day of raw sewage.
Baja California says the plant is releasing 23 million gallons per day (1,000 liters per second) of sewage that has undergone minimal chlorine treatment. Mexico’s National Water Commission puts the figure at 27 million gallons per day (1,200 liters per second).
In addition, about 50 million gallons per day of sewage-contaminated water flow from the Tijuana River toward Imperial Beach, according to the IBWC river gauge.
About half is raw sewage and the rest is a mix of treated sewage, groundwater and potable water from Tijuana’s leaking pipes, according to Rogers.
Honold said Tijuana’s state-run infrastructure has been neglected for decades as the city’s population has grown from 65,000 in 1950 to about 2 million today.
Then Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Avila, elected in 2021, made sewer repairs a priority, Honold said.
“We’re sorry,” Honold said. “We’re going to fix it, and we’re 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)
