Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the US EPA, asked Mexico and the US on Tuesday to develop a “100% solution” to stop the flow of raw sewage from Tijuana near the border that contaminates the Tijuana River and deals with the foul smell and beaches that are often closed due to high bacteria levels.
“The Americans on our side of the border that have been dealing with this for decades are out of patience,” Zeldin said at a news conference in San Diego. “They want to act, and they’re right.”
Zeldin visited the river north of the border and met with Mexican government officials as well as local governments in San Diego County. He said the Trump administration is seeking “the biggest collaboration and extreme urgency to end a crisis that should have been over for a long time.”
The Tijuana River has been plagued by untreated sewage and Tijuana industrial waste for decades. The city’s growth is far greater than existing sewage treatment plants, with inadequate and broken facilities being discarded into rivers, polluting the water and air of Imperial beaches and other communities near the border.
Zeldin met Mexican Environment Secretary Alicia Barcena and other Mexican officials for about 90 minutes Monday night.
Barcena said in a social media post it was a “very productive meeting.”
“We have agreed to strengthen our joint action,” Barcena said.
Zeldin said Mexico still needs to provide the $88 million that it previously pledged in the 2022 agreement. He said we and Mexican officials will soon plan to create a “specific statement from both countries” outlining the actions the Mexican government will take to address the issue.
“We all need to be on the same page with a 100% solution from the US side. If all of these things on that list were to be over, this crisis was over,” Zeldin said.
He didn’t discuss costs or schedules, but said the goal should be “to get all projects done as fast as possible.”
Last week’s environmental group American Rivers ranked Tijuana River No. 2 in its annual list of the nation’s most endangered rivers, starting with the ninth in its list last year. The group said they raised the river on the list to bring more attention to the issue of chronic contamination of the waterway and the lack of action to clean it.
Environmental advocates urged the US government to treat sewage from Tijuana and prioritize revisions and expansion of the devastated South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Zeldin toured the South Bay factory where he met Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and other officials. He had members of the Congress, including Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano).
Levin said the US government has allocated $653 million to modify and expand the South Bay wastewater plant.
“We have to put those shovels on the ground,” Levin said. “We need to get our South Bay plant up and double the capacity as quickly as possible.”
Zeldin also said he was training in the area and meeting with naval seals who were sick due to contaminated water.
In a recent report, the Department of Defense said that around 1,100 cases of the disease have been reported between Navy seals and other service members who were exposed to high levels of bacteria when trained overseas near the border.
“This has been an issue for decades. It’s not fixed. It’s just getting worse,” said Dunle Steward, a retired Navy captain and former seal who lives in Coronado but did not attend Tuesday’s event.
Decades ago, stewards got sick after basic underwater seal training and had to take antibiotics to recover. The steward said he heard similar stories from seals and candidates trained along the beaches of Coronado.
“It’s a national security issue,” Steward said. For naval personnel in the area, he said, “it limits their ability to properly train and puts their lives at risk, especially for those experiencing basic training.”
Others affected include Marines, Coast Guard members and Border Patrol agents, he said. Steward said his daughter was sick with an infection of a type of bacteria called MRSA, which is resistant to many antibiotics while surfing nearby.
“The US has a role to help improve the situation,” Steward said. “We all have a role to play here, and we feel that is the only way to solve the problem.”
Ramonchairs, director of environmental advocacy at an Enkinitas-based nonprofit, said he wanted to see the various actions filmed on the US side of the border.
Chairs said they believe Zeldin is focusing on Mexico-US collaboration.
“Overall, I think the general tone points to Mexican accountability, but there is a perception that it will be a cooperative effort on both sides of the border,” Chairs said.
He said one topic that has not been discussed but contributed to the issue is that many US-based companies have set up factories on the Mexican side of the border.
“We couldn’t hear any words about Maquiladora or the factories or industry on the Mexican side, so we’re holding them accountable,” he said. “Companies based in the US and California are operating along the border, particularly in Tijuana, polluting the rivers in the same way.”
Matthew Tejada, senior vice president of environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Fund, said commitments from U.S. officials sound good, but providing those commitments will be more complicated due to budget and staffing cuts. He said Zeldin wanted to eliminate 65% of the Environmental Protection Agency budget.
“It would be an interesting trick for the EPA to achieve such results accurately while the EPA is actually tearing the staff and systems needed to make those changes happen,” Tejada said.
He said the Trump administration’s recent actions, including cutting funds and rewinding environmental measures, “make it much more difficult for the country to actually have clean air, clean land and clean water.”
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