For decades, raw sewage from Tijuana has flowed into the Tijuana River, north through the United States, and into the Pacific Ocean, violating U.S. clean water standards. Efforts to clean up the waste have bogged down in the double-bureaucracy that plagues cross-border negotiations, with fully one dozen Mexican and U.S. municipal, state, and federal agencies weighing in. Now, though, there’s a glimmer of hope that the sewage problem could be solved once and for all: This month, officials from both countries are meeting to discuss a plan to pipe millions of gallons of sewage from an existing but only semi-effective treatment plant in the U.S. back into Mexico, where a U.S.-funded plant would further cleanse the waste before piping it to the sea. The plan has met with cautious optimism from some environmental organizations, city officials in San Diego and Tijuana, and marine-sports enthusiasts, who are sick of surfing in sewage.
