While the federal response ramps up to address a major sewage spill in the Potomac River, residents in San Diego County’s southernmost communities who have endured decades of wastewater spills in the binational Tijuana River say they feel left behind.
A major sewer line, known as the Potomac Interceptor, collapsed last month, dumping more than 240 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. A month into the break, the public is advised to avoid all contact with the river as water samples show elevated levels of E. coli. There have also been reports of noxious sewer gas odors impacting nearby residents.
Local frustration has reached new heights since President Donald Trump declared the incident an emergency on Monday to expedite federal aid, including cleaning up the spill, repairing the pipeline and “testing to ensure the safety of the community.”
“I'm very glad for the declaration for the people there,” said Marvel Harrison, a resident of Imperial Beach, where the shoreline is closed because of sewage contamination. “I'm disgusted that we have waited and struggled so long to not have one here.”
Trump's declaration came after Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser proclaimed a local public emergency and requested federal assistance under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, or Stafford Act, for short.
Such a declaration triggers the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to handle all sorts of aid that may be needed. That can look like emergency protective measures, temporary housing, repairs, water testing and environmental cleanup.
In San Diego County, the Board of Supervisors, all 18 cities in the county, school districts and other governing boards have proclaimed the Tijuana River sewage crisis an emergency. They have largely been symbolic.
To fast-track federal resources, the Stafford Act requires the governor to formally request aid and the president must approve.
There is a narrow exception in the Stafford Act that allows the president to declare an emergency without the governor’s request: the situation has to be mainly a federal responsibility, although the Stafford Act does not specify how it’s determined.
Neither Gov. Gavin Newsom nor any president has declared the ongoing sewage crisis at the San Diego-Mexico border a crisis.
Newsom’s administration has repeatedly argued that the sewage problem at the Tijuana River is the responsibility of federal entities and that a state proclamation of emergency cannot fast-track solutions in “a federally-controlled area on an international border.”
In 2024, while visiting San Diego to discuss a forthcoming border crossing, Newsom said a state declaration of emergency “would not have availed us to any real benefit except symbolism and then ultimately frustration that it didn’t mean anything.”
Instead, the governor’s administration said it has led a host of other efforts, including allocating state funds for trash cleanup projects and joining local leaders in their call for federal funding to fix wastewater infrastructure.
In an emailed statement, the EPA said, the Trump administration “negotiated and signed two historic new agreements with Mexico — the Memorandum of Understanding in July 2025 and Minute 333 in December 2025 — committing both sides to speed up project timelines and take additional actions to prevent this crisis from reoccurring down the road.”
The federal government has expanded a wastewater treatment plant in the Tijuana River Valley that treats up to 35 million gallons of Mexico’s sewage per day. It’s working to expand its capacity to 50 million gallons a day. Last year, Mexico rehabilitated a treatment facility designed to treat 18 million gallons daily.
While officials say the upgrades have helped, shorelines remain closed and pipeline ruptures in Mexico have recently sent millions of gallons of raw sewage into the dry-season Tijuana River.
“We’re left in the stench; we’re left in the poisoning,” said Marvel Harrison, a resident of Imperial Beach, where the shoreline is repeatedly closed because of high levels of sewage pollution.
