Tijuana sewage gushes through border canyon in San Diego after recent pipe break

Apr 02, 2023

Millions of gallons of raw sewage from Mexico are gushing into San Diego through two canyons along the border, according to federal officials. The spill is coming from at least two pump stations that were forced to shut down after a construction crew last week inadvertently ruptured a major pipeline south of Tijuana.

Shorelines as far north as the Silver Strand were closed due to sewage contamination as of Wednesday, with the rest of the region's coastline under the standard 72-hour rain advisory. South Bay beaches have been repeatedly shuttered as the result of winter storms that washed polluted flows through the Tijuana River watershed.

"I’ve said it 1,000 times, but I’ll keep saying it until it's fixed: It's an environmental injustice," said Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, who has made cleaning up pollution from Tijuana her top priority.

The recent spill, which started last Friday, is concentrated in Goat Canyon and Smugglers Gulch, where concrete capture basins are helping to redirect some of the flow to the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant along the border in San Diego, officials said.

The wastewater facility, which typically treats about 25 million gallons of sewage a day, has been processing an additional roughly 10 million gallons daily from Tijuana to limit the spill's impacts, officials said.

"We can sustain this, but it is adding wear and tear on our plant," said Morgan Rogers, area operations manager in San Diego for the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission.

Federal officials estimate that it will take at least another week to repair the broken pipe, which carries effluent to a crumbling wastewater treatment plant located about 6 miles south of the border at a place called Punta Bandera.

However, just repairing the pipe won't completely address pollution linked to the aging facility. The San Antonio de los Buenos treatment plant near Tijuana discharges about 35 million gallons a day of raw sewage into the Pacific Ocean, according to estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That discharge frequently floats up the coast, shuttering beaches even during summer months. The governor of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Ávila, has pledged to fix or replace the plant by 2025.

Meanwhile, EPA has a wide-ranging $630 million plan to address the sewage pollution pouring over the border from Tijuana. The blueprint, which has about $300 million in funding, prioritizes an expansion of the International Wastewater Treatment Plant in San Diego. Officials have said projects could break ground in the next three years.

The agency has cautioned that no amount of spending will completely stop the flood of urban runoff triggered by heavy rains. In fact, these flows, as polluted as they are, help maintain the estuary in Imperial Beach. The wetlands would degrade over time without the infusion of freshwater.

Reports of Tijuana sewage leaking over the border into the San Diego region stretch back at least to the 1930s. While significant improvements were made in the 1990s, the city's plumbing still isn't keeping pace with population growth.

Real-time beach conditions are posted at sdbeachinfo.com.