EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin recently traveled to San Diego, California, to survey the Tijuana River sewage crisis. Mexico has discharged untreated sewage and contaminated stormwater into the Tijuana River for decades. This contaminated water flows into the Pacific Ocean off Southern California, where residents complain of illness because of these discharges. The discharges have closed beaches, created toxic hot spots, and negatively impacted the Navy SEALs’ training facility.
During the trip, Zeldin met with Mexican officials, visited the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment (SBIWT) Plant, led a roundtable with elected leaders and local stakeholders, held a press conference, toured the southern border via helicopter, and met with Navy SEALs at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado.
“Upon arriving in San Diego, Administrator Zeldin met with Mexico Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources Alicia Bárcena for an over 90-minute-long discussion about this crisis,” according to an EPA news release. “Secretary Bárcena communicated throughout the meeting that it is a top priority of the new Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to resolve this issue once and for all. Both sides discussed the need for Mexico to commit to working with the United States and be a collaborative working partner. Administrator Zeldin presented his counterpart with a list of action items to permanently end the crisis.”
One of those action items is an $88 million payment from Mexico for essential infrastructure projects that was pledged in a 2022 agreement, Spanish media company Smart Water Magazine notes.
Other action items include:
- Expansion of the Mexico wastewater treatment plant capacity to a minimum of 50 million wastewater gallons per day;
- Updates to Mexico’s San Antonio de los Buenos Wastewater Treatment Plant to expand capacity to 18 million gallons of wastewater each day; and
- Mexico’s completion of the installation of floodgates to divert sewage waste and collect trash.
Background
Bodies of water often delineate a country’s borders, which generally means both countries equally share in the use and care of those bodies of water. For Mexico and the United States, those bodies of water include the Rio Grande River, the Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. The specifics of how the water will be used and discharges into those waters are often outlined in treaties.
In December 2023, the San Diego Coastkeeper and Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation (CERF) filed a notice of intent (NOI) to sue the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) over alleged Clean Water Act (CWA) violations from Tijuana sewage.
The two groups documented “hundreds of violations” that cause the Tijuana River and coastal marine waters to become overwhelmed with untreated sewage and toxic chemicals.
According to the NOI, the SBIWT Plant discharges extremely high levels of sewage and toxic chemicals into the Tijuana River and Pacific Ocean in violation of its CWA permit.
The IBWC is the federal agency responsible for water treaties with Mexico and funding border infrastructure projects. It’s also charged with operating the SBIWT Plant, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“Since being built in 1990, the IBWC’s South Bay treatment plant has suffered from operational and maintenance failures that result in chronic, severe pollution of coastal waters and the Tijuana River estuary,” according to a CERF news release. “The City of Imperial Beach has borne the brunt of the impact, with its public beach closed for over two consecutive years due to polluted discharges from this facility and related discharges of raw sewage from Tijuana. Earlier this year, IBWC was forced to admit the plant needed over $150 million in repairs, following decades of neglect.”
The two groups previously sued the IBWC in 2022, which resulted in a settlement of $300 million in funding for the SBIWT Plant to be modernized and expanded.
The necessary $150 million in funding was for repairs just to bring it back to basic operating condition. Expansion of the plant to accommodate future needs is estimated to cost approximately $1 billion dollars, the CERF release adds. “Since the settlement, the condition of the South Bay treatment plant has continued to deteriorate. The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, which oversees the plant’s [CWA] permit, has thus far only taken administrative action to bring the plant into compliance, with little success.”
Last fall, the Biden administration requested an additional $310 million from Congress to address the issue, notes The Hill.
“We don’t want the 70 percent solution or the 90 percent solution, but we all need to be on the same page, on the 100 percent solution from the U.S. side,” Zeldin said. “The EPA chief also stressed that Mexico must account for expected population growth in the Tijuana region when planning forthcoming water projects, to ensure ‘that five years from now, or 10 years from now, we’re not back sitting at a table again.’”
1944 Water Treaty
Agreements for shared water responsibilities between the United States and Mexico have a long history.
One of these agreements is the Water Treaty of February 3, 1944, for the “‘utilization of waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande,’ [which] distributed the waters in the international segment of the Rio Grande from Fort Quitman, Texas to the Gulf of Mexico. This treaty also authorized the two countries to construct operate and maintain dams on the main channel of the Rio Grande. The 1944 treaty also changed the name of the IBC to the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), and in Article 3 the two governments entrusted the IBWC to give preferential attention to the solution of all border sanitation problems,” according to IBWC.gov.
Under that agreement, Mexico is required to deliver 1.75-million-acre feet of water to the United States from six tributaries every 5 years, according to news site The Texas Tribune.
“That averages to 350,000 acre-feet every year. With more than four years into the current cycle, which ends in October, Mexico has delivered less than 600,000 acre-feet,” the Tribune article continues. “If Mexico is able to deliver the proposed maximum of 420,000 acre-feet under the new agreement, its total deliveries for the current five-year cycle would reach 950,000 acre-feet.
“To address the more than 800,000 acre-feet that would still be owed, Mexico agreed to an immediate transfer of 56,750 acre-feet of water at the Amistad Reservoir, which is jointly managed by the U.S. and Mexico. They also agreed to make monthly transfers at both Amistad and the Falcon reservoirs.”
Under the 1944 Water Treaty with Mexico, the United States receives one-third of the water from six different tributaries. However, to address its deficient water delivery, Mexico has agreed to allow the United States to receive half of the water from those tributaries.
Mexico has also agreed to “deliver more water from the Río San Juan, a flow not managed by the treaty and which cannot be stored at the reservoirs, when it can be beneficial for the U.S.,” the Tribune article adds.
The IBWC reached an agreement with Mexico to amend the water treaty in November. That amendment “allows Mexico to transfer water stored at the two reservoirs to the U.S. and allows Mexico to deliver water it doesn’t need from the San Juan and Alamo rivers, both of which were not included in the original treaty as acceptable sources of water deliveries.”
There are currently two problems hindering the resolution of the water supply issues: a lack of critical infrastructure and an ongoing drought.
“According to a February 2024 report, nearly 60% of [Mexico] is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought,” according to MR Online. “The drought has hit the arid northern states the hardest but extends as far down as Mexico City. Reservoirs are running dangerously low, with some sitting at only 10-15% of storage capacity. The water shortages, caused by lack of rainfall and prolonged heat waves, are so severe that thousands of cattle have died of starvation. Essential crops like wheat, corn, sorghum, and coffee beans are at risk. In the northwest state of Sonora, every single one of the state’s 72 municipalities is in severe drought. In Chihuahua, entire populations of bees and fish are on the brink of extinction.”
South Texas is also suffering drought conditions, which exacerbate the water crisis on both sides of the border.
“Last year, Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, the last sugar mill in the state, announced their closure after 51 years in operation due to the lack of water,” the Tribune says. “As drought conditions persisted, limiting the amount of water that could be used to irrigate crops, the agriculture community grew concerned that the citrus industry could be next.”
U.S. Senator John Cornyn has lobbied within Congress to boost Texas’s water supply and ensure Mexico fulfills its treaty obligations to provide annual deliveries of water to south Texas farmers and ranchers. He partnered with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to successfully secure more than $280 million in emergency assistance for Rio Grande Valley farmers and producers affected by the water shortage.
“South Texas has been devastated by Mexico’s repeated refusal to deliver the water it has owed the United States for far too long, and I commend the Trump administration for securing this critical deal for Mexico to finally send water to the region,” Cornyn says in a news release.
“U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat from McAllen joined Cornyn’s letter, welcomed the new agreement but insisted that any water from Mexico must be met with increased federal funding to improve the local infrastructure,” the Tribune adds. “‘We lose 40% of the Mexican water payments to evaporation and seepage,’ Gonzalez said. ‘If we don’t get our infrastructure in order, we will never be out of the woods.’”
U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, a Republican from Edinburg, Texas, formed the South Texas Water Working Group, which is focused “on developing water infrastructure to enable the region to be self-sustaining when it comes to water.”
According to Russell Boening, president of the Texas Farm Bureau, “The recovery of Rio Grande Valley agriculture will take time after years of hardship. Mexico must make good on its new promise to deliver water.”
Another meeting between Mexico and the United States is scheduled in July to assess the effectiveness of current actions and any ongoing draught-related issues.
“They also intend to hold ongoing meetings to formulate a plan for Mexico to make dependable deliveries during the next five-year cycle,” notes the Tribune article.