THE NEWS

Authored by Jane Yang via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new chief expressed outrage over the Tijuana River sewage pollution that has for decades affected San Diego border communities and generated health hazards, recently causing a record of more than 1,000 consecutive days of beach closures.

“I was just briefed that Mexico is dumping large amounts of raw sewage into the Tijuana River, and it’s now seeping into the U.S.,” said EPA’s Administrator Lee Zeldin in a post on the social media platform X on the afternoon of March 8.

“This is unacceptable. Mexico MUST honor its commitments to control this pollution and sewage!” Zeldin wrote.

A few hours after Zeldin’s post, a transboundary flow of wastewater mixed with heavy stormwater was reported entering the U.S. side starting 1:30 a.m. on March 9, according to the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (USIBWC), the federal agency responsible for implementing boundary and water treaties between the United States and Mexico.

In a follow-up press release on March 10, USIBWC said that it had several meetings with Mexican officials, and preliminary information showed that “multiple unforeseen construction issues” at a project to replace a wastewater pipe in Tijuana resulted in the accidental flows.

“I have made it very clear to Mexico the importance of avoiding future transboundary flows to the greatest extent possible during this very complicated construction project,” said USIBWC Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner, who was appointed to head the agency in August 2021, in the statement.

“We appreciate EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s attention to this issue and will keep him as well as all our stakeholders informed of Mexico’s progress,” the commissioner added.

The agency said the transboundary flows stopped mid-afternoon on March 9.

The ongoing project aims to replace Tijuana’s largest wastewater conveyance pipe, which has been plagued by leaks that have caused pollution flows in the past, according to the USIBWC. The project is funded by the United States, Mexico, and a Mexican bank, and is under construction by the Mexico Ministry of Defense.

USIBWC spokesperson Frank Fisher told The Epoch Times in an email that the USIBWC is in regular close contact with its Mexican counterparts at all levels. But for the new regular meetings, the focus will be exclusively on the pipe replacement project and monitoring any problems.

“We continue to work on four fronts to tackle the transboundary issue: Repairs to the South Bay plant; expansion of the plant; monitoring Mexico’s commitment on projects in Minute 328; and taking urgent action to ensure zero transboundary flows during the dry season,” Fisher said.

Minute 328 is a binational agreement signed in July 2022 by the United States and Mexican federal agencies to reduce wastewater in the Tijuana River watershed and Pacific Ocean through a suite of infrastructure projects on both sides of the border.

Trash builds up along the Tijuana River outside of San Diego, Calif., on Sept. 19, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

California Leaders Ask EPA Chief for Help

John McCann, Mayor of Chula Vista, a south bay city in San Diego County, which declared a state of emergency last November due to the Tijuana River sewage crisis, told The Epoch Times through email that he had asked “a few South County leaders who are former colleagues of Zeldin” to convey the message and escalate the Tijuana River sewage crisis “to the highest level at the EPA.”

“The ongoing Tijuana sewage crisis is an urgent environmental and public health issue that requires immediate action. Accountability on the part of Mexico is essential,” McCann said in the email, “But we have to recognize that fully solving the crisis depends on a cooperative, binational approach.”

He said the most important first steps in tackling the crisis include securing at least $630 million of federal funding needed for infrastructure repair and expansion and persuading Mexico to act responsibly.

At the Jan. 16 senate hearing on the nomination of Zeldin to be administrator of the EPA, the newly elected Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked whether Zeldin would review a proposal that was rejected by previous EPA leaders.

Schiff asked, “Will you agree to review EPA’s January 7 decision to deny request to investigate the Tijuana River Valley for a potential Superfund designation? … Will you agree to review it and consider whether a different judgment should be reached?”

Zeldin answered “Yes.”

The Superfund site designation petition was initiated by San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer last October. One of the co-signers was Mayor Paloma Aguirre of Imperial Beach, the city most heavily affected by the sewage crisis.

The petition requested the EPA to investigate and assess the hazardous materials in the Tijuana River Valley area in San Diego for its eligibility for inclusion in the EPA’s Superfund program, which could help bring federal resources to clean up hazardous materials in heavily contaminated regions.

Aguirre also sent two letters to Zeldin, one on Jan. 22 after the Senate hearing and another on March 3, after Zeldin was sworn in on Jan. 29 as the 17th EPA head. In both letters, Aguirre asked Zeldin for a new review of Tijuana River Valley’s Superfund designation.

“I was heartened by your agreement in your confirmation hearing to CA Senator Schiff’s request to review the EPA’s recent denial of Superfund designation for this environmental crisis,” she wrote in the letters. Aguirre also invited Zeldin to visit the region to see the disaster firsthand.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Schiff, Lawson-Remer, and Aguirre for comment on Zeldin’s post but did not hear back before publication.

A sewage treatment facility pumps in water from the Tijuana River outside of San Diego, Calif., on Sept. 19, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A Decades-Long Crisis

The majority of the Tijuana River’s 120-mile course is within the northern Baja California state of Mexico, and only about five miles of its lower end crosses the border from Tijuana to San Diego and empties into the Pacific Ocean.

The Tijuana River pollution has gone on for decades, but the crisis has only become worse in the past few years with Tijuana’s fast-growing population, as well as the deterioration of water treatment infrastructure, said Phillip Musegaas, executive director of the non-profit San Diego Coastkeeper, in an article dated May 2, 2024, on the organization’s website.

In the past five years, over 100 billion gallons of pollutants have been discharged into the Tijuana River, raising major concerns about water quality and public health in the San Diego region, according to a recent Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, performed in October 2024 and released in January.

California leaders at federal and local levels, as well as community advocates and organizations, have in recent years pushed to generate momentum to tackle the complex transboundary pollution issue by introducing new legislation, securing federal funding, filing lawsuits, giving out air purifiers to residents in affected communities, and other means and proposals.