For two decades, visitors to San Diego have expressed bafflement about the U.S. government’s response to one of our region’s worst problems: the billions of gallons of raw sewage that regularly flow north from broken infrastructure in Tijuana, fouling the water and air from San Ysidro to Coronado and beyond.
They ask, “Why won’t the feds demand Mexico fix its own problem">hostile act under international law. Whether the damage results from belligerent policies or incompetence is of limited relevance.
But when visitors are told that Washington’s reaction has largely been bureaucratic and indifferent, their incredulity only grows. For whatever reason, the default federal approach has been to assume that U.S. taxpayers should help pay for any efforts needed to slow the sewage onslaught from Tijuana.
Yet it wasn’t until April 1 that a key U.S. official rejected this assumption. “Permanent solutions must be urgently implemented by Mexico to end decades of their filthy sewage flowing into the U.S.,” wrote EPA Lee Zeldin, who plans to visit the Tijuana border area in coming weeks. Observers think it’s quite possible sewage fixes will become part of the overall demands that the Trump istration is making on Mexico — starting with a crackdown on the cartels funneling fentanyl into the U.S. — using trade threats to compel action.
This would immediately elevate what for too long has been a mostly local story into an international one.
But here’s the twist: If this pressure doesn’t work, then the sewage emergency may become more intractable than ever. That’s because the Trump istration’s hostility to the existing federal response advocated by leaders like Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, is obvious. Peters and his allies see the allocation of $650 million to fully repair and expand the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant on the U.S. side of the border as a huge step toward a years-long effort to reduce if not end the crisis.
But the White House doesn’t see the federal government as obligated to play this role. It has opposed designating the heavily polluted Tijuana River Valley as a Superfund site, which could require heavy EPA spending. It has cut funding on water safety programs here and across the nation. Most dramatically, President Trump intends to end the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s role as a key resource for local and state governments facing emergencies. Given this determination to reduce federal spending on many domestic programs however possible, it’s probably only a matter of time before the White House tries to claw back as much of the allocated $650 million as it can.
This is why San Diegans must hope that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum accepts that her nation should finally fix what’s broken in Tijuana. Because if she doesn’t, even the modest sewage progress seen locally in recent years may fade away.
