Environment Report: US Steps up Watchdog Role Over Tijuana Sewage System

Years ago, in a moment of despair over the utter dead-end that solving the Tijuana River sewage crisis seemed to be, I asked U.S. officials why we don’t just cross the border and start fixing broken pipes in Mexico.  

Nations can’t just cross each other’s borders like that, MacKenzie, the kindly federal official told me. At least, they shouldn’t. It would be a rude mistake. Mexico could consider such federal intrusion without permission as an act of war.  

But President Joe Biden’s pick to rein in cross-border sewage spills has found a way to leverage her relationships with Mexico to encourage more collaborative U.S. involvement. Maria-Elena Giner announced to reporters during a press conference last week that the International Boundary and Water Commission (the binational agency that deals with cross-border water issues) will start monthly inspections of a key sewage pump and trash shredder in Tijuana that feeds wastewater into San Diego for treatment. That’s new for the IBWC.  

Giner credited her Mexican counterpart, Adriana Reséndez Maldonado, and Baja California’s governor, Marina del Pilar Avila Olmeda, for working to coordinate meetings between the officials from both countries to work on the problem.  

The pump, named PBCILA (don’t ask me what it stands for), has been a thorn in the IBWC’s side for years. Its only job is to pump polluted water out of the Tijuana River and send it to be cleaned at treatment plants on both sides of the border. Mexico paid to fix up PBCILA back in 2021. Before then, the damn thing shut down randomly. Sometimes there was a reason, like, when it’s raining and there’s too much water for the pump to handle. Sometimes, it shut down without any explanation.  

Now we know one reason: No one was paying the PBCILA power bill. Giner shared with reporters that the IBWC’s been picking up the tab.  

“No more excuses that they have to shut off the electricity because they can’t pay,” she said.  

How much PBCILA’s power bill costs the already cash strapped IBWC is unclear. I’m still waiting to hear back on the amount. 

Summertime is PBCILA’s moment to shine. When summer hits Baja California, the Tijuana River shouldn’t be flowing. It’s a seasonal river, meaning it should run dry during the dry season. But the river’s been flowing year-round for at least a year, which means spills – be it sewage or treated wastewater from Mexican plants up river – are still happening.  

The IBWC also plans to team up with its Mexican counterpart, called CILA, to survey the river on the Tijuana side this summer for the first time. The goal? Figure out once and for all where and how sewage and other spills get into the Tijuana River channel.  

Here’s another thing I’m watching: Recall when a sewer pipe running through a Tijuana border canyon snapped in half last year? Mexico finished restoring the pipe but it’s not online yet. Because that pipe isn’t currently transporting Tijuana sewage to a wastewater treatment plant on the coast, there’s more sewage making its way into the Tijuana River – which spills directly below the city of Imperial Beach.  

Giner said there’s not much she can do to get Mexico to use its own pipe.  

“That is an area outside of my control, but not outside my influence,” Giner said.  

She said she’ll be back in town in a few weeks to hold meetings with the feds in Mexico specifically about that pipe.  

In Other News 

• Our new social journalist, Bella Ross, visited the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment plant for the first time. This is what she smelled. 
• Congress came through at the 11th hour for the IBWC on emergency funding to fix the sewage plant that prevents pollution from hitting beaches in southern California. But the agency needs a lot more money to keep the border running. (Voice of San Diego) 
• The military under Richard Nixon gave California a lease on San Onofre State Beach for $1. Now they allegedly want millions of dollars in rent for it. North County reporter Tigist Layne had the scoop.  
• In a bid to pay for the mounting costs of building and fortifying electric grids against wildfire, a flat $24.15 fee could hit monthly utility bills. At the same time the cost of energy would drop a few cents per kilowatt-hour. The point is to help subsidize lower-income power customers’ bills. The final vote could come next month. (Union-Tribune) 
• The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy largely depends on the addition of battery storage on the grid to support power demands when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. But some people living in San Marcos and Escondido are putting up a fight against a plan to build a huge battery facility on a prime parcel of private land. (Union-Tribune) 
• The Marines closed a landfill at Camp Pendleton after water regulators cited the site for pollution violations. (inewsource) 
• The city of San Diego is working on a new general planning element that could speed up rezoning neighborhoods for higher density. (KPBS) 
• If you find a litter of wild coyotes, just leave them alone. Their parents will probably come back for them and move the den during the evening. Also, keep the area around your home free of waste that might attract coyotes. (Union-Tribune)