After millions of gallons of raw sewage spilled into San Diego through the Tijuana River, federal officials said Monday the toxic flows had stopped.
The U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), which oversees the treatment of some of Tijuana’s wastewater north of the border, said the spill began Thursday night.
The cause: a major sewage pipe collapse in eastern Tijuana. The Insurgentes Collector is about three miles long and transports about 900 liters of wastewater per second, making it an essential wastewater system in Tijuana, according to CESPT, the main water company in Baja California.
In a Monday post on X, the IBWC said it appreciated “Mexico’s urgency in completing this project in 3 days instead of the 10 days they originally estimated repairs could take.”
About 11 million gallons more of untreated wastewater gushed into San Diego through the Tijuana River each day, the IBWC said.
Several residents took to social media to express their frustration over sewage odors that followed the spill.
Among them was Nestor resident Bobbi Otero. She and her family live near the Tijuana River Valley. The stench of raw sewage penetrated her home last week. This wasn’t the first time.
“When it's really bad, I feel like I can taste it,” she said. “You're coming down the street a half a mile away…you’ve got your windows down cuz it’s a beautiful San Diego and, it's like, oh, there's that odor.”
Last week’s spill is the latest of many over the past decade and amid infrastructure repairs happening on both sides of the border. But those who live and work in the South County communities affected by the sewage pollution said they feel like reprieve is far from coming.
“We continue to see these infrastructure failures that have an immediate impact, not only on our environment but also on the public health of people living near the Tijuana River Valley,” said Phillip Musegaas, the executive director of the environmental nonprofit San Diego Coastkeeper.
He said the collapse “highlights the urgent need to hold Mexico accountable, to continue to push Mexico to make these repairs more quickly and to make sure that they are looking at this whole system because, you know, this particular incident, this repair was not, my understanding, a priority until it completely failed again.”
He added that people on both sides of the border deserve greater transparency from their governments on how they prioritize infrastructure fixes.
“Are they doing this based on risk of failure or are they looking at the worst parts of the system first,” said Musegaas. “Those are all questions that, unfortunately, we don’t have answers to and the public needs to know that.”
Also last week, Rep. Juan Vargas (D-CA-52) and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) announced they had secured nearly $3.5 million for trash and sediment projects in the Tijuana River Valley.
“This funding will help us continue to combat pollution, trash, and sediment in the Tijuana River Valley and also reduce flooding risks,” said Vargas in a statement.
