February 12, 2024
by: Salvador Rivera
SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre patiently talked to residents while spending some time at the foot of the city’s iconic pier, the overriding topic of conversation was the sewage problem in the nearby Tijuana River Valley.
Imperial Beach, or I.B. as the locals refer to it, is the American city most impacted by the sewage that comes in from Mexico every day.
A lot of this effluent ends up in the ocean, forcing the closure of California beaches in city’s like I.B. and Coronado to the north.
“It’s the worst it’s ever been, it’s the border crisis nobody is talking about,” Aguirre said.
The mayor told Border Report that recent storms dropped a tremendous amount of rain bringing with it staggering levels of raw sewage from the south side of the border.
Aguirre says the city of Tijuana doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle sewage generated from its 2 million residents. She added that the sewer system is tied to the storm-runoff network, so when it rains, a heavy volume of harmful raw sewage is released and flows downhill into California’s Tijuana River Valley.
On Jan. 22, approximately 14.5 billion gallons of water tainted with raw sewage made its way into the United States, according to figures published by the International Boundary and Water Commission.
In the past week, IBWC says, numbers show about 1 billion gallons of stormwater containing a small percentage of raw sewage pouring in daily.
“All of that flow impacts us all the way from the border north of Coronado, sometimes all the way to Point Loma, so that’s the entire south county of San Diego,” she said. “We’ve had the southern end of Imperial Beach closed for over 800 consecutive days, and in this stretch of beach where we’re at has been closed every single day this year and every single day last year.”
Despite beach closures over polluted water, surfers can be seen in the Imperial Beach, Calif., waves daily. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
Aguirre fears more flows and more beach closures will continue to happen if a wastewater treatment plant on the north side of the border isn’t fixed soon, so it can handle the sewage that comes in from Mexico.
“This plant has been operating on the verge of collapse, the plant needs to be expanded to double its capacity,” she said.
Money for these repairs is said to be in the works. More than $300 million have been allocated to upgrade the plant as well as other sewage infrastructure on both sides of the border.
A “Keep Out” sign is laid out all along beaches in Imperial Beach, Calif. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
President Joe Biden has also requested additional funding, but that money remains stuck in Congress.
“Beach closures have a tremendous impact on the quality of life for the 750,000 residents that use these beaches, beaches of south San Diego County,” Aguirre said.
She’s also concerned with the ongoing health problems she blames on bacteria that comes from the sewage, pathogens that get in the air and are pushed by the wind to areas away from the coast or the Tijuana River Valley.
Aguirre says the pollution is also endangering the lives of Border Patrol agents who work in the valley. Border Report reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection seeking comment about the polluted waters affecting agents in the field, but did not hear back.
“They are being impacted by chemical burns, asthmatic attacks, they have even received hazard pay for having to function in these conditions,” Aguirre said.
And just up the coast from Imperial Beach is the brand-new Navy Seals facility where, according to the Navy, the contamination is making an impact on training.
In a written statement to Border Report, the Navy wrote: “When water is contaminated, in-water training evolutions are delayed, moved or canceled.”
Aguirre says this is affecting the Seals’ military readiness.
“Every single Navy Seal has to come and train in Coronado, their readiness is being impacted by the sewage pollution.”