The binational agency that operates an aging wastewater treatment plant at the U.S.-Mexico border that is allowing Tijuana sewage to foul South County shorelines said it won’t meet this week’s deadline to bring the broken system into compliance with federal water quality standards.
Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner, who heads the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission responsible for the South Bay plant, told the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board on Wednesday that continuing equipment failures and political challenges made it impossible to get three of the five primary treatment tanks online by Thursday, as had been promised.
“We are not going to make (tomorrow’s) deadline, right, but we do have a plan,” she said during an extensive presentation. She requested an extension, citing the unparalleled amount of sedimentation from Mexico that is confounding multimillion-dollar efforts to bring the plant fully online.
The board did not take any action as the meeting was only to receive an update from the IBWC. The board also did not comment on requests from the public to further its enforcement by imposing a financial penalty on the IBWC.
Water board commissioners praised Giner’s exhaustive efforts, but said they weren’t enough.
“We’ve seen more investment than we have historically, but we still have unprecedented levels of failures,” Board Chairperson Celeste Cantú told Giner. “Your Herculean efforts fall short.”
The South Bay plant was built in 1996 to serve as a backstop for Tijuana sewage, treating wastewater before discharging it to the ocean. But repeated sewage flows beyond the facility’s capacity and poor maintenance have crippled the plant.
In 2021, the water board issued a cease-and-desist order requiring the IBWC to fix the plant. But the plant has remained out of compliance. In December, the board decided to enforce its order by giving the federal agency a deadline of Aug. 15 to complete repairs.
One of the plant’s biggest problems: separating solids from wastewater.
All five of its primary sedimentation tanks, which remove solids, had been down since March 2023. The agency managed to get two tanks running earlier in the summer and planned to have a third online by July. A minimum of three is required for its permit.
But Giner said the plant is down to one online tank after a second one had a chain snap, likely due to a buildup of sediment from south of the border.
The U.S. section of the agency, she added, had a “very tough meeting” Tuesday with its Mexican counterpart and the state and federal governments to raise concerns about sedimentation levels compromising its treatment infrastructure and canyon collectors.
Sediment, the IBWC says, also overwhelmed its pump station at Hollister Street in the Tijuana River Valley, ultimately leading to its failure in mid-June that caused 302,000 gallons of wastewater to spill onto the road.
As of June, the IBWC recorded 3,815 tons of sediment and trash hauled from the South Bay plant – that’s nearly five times over the previous year.
Giner said Mexico has not explained where the sediment comes from and why it has not implemented control measures. She said Mexico has agreed to identify sources and the U.S. IBWC will do more frequent maintenance of the South Bay plant. It will also look at building a sediment removal system as it expands the plant’s capacity from 25 million gallons per day to 50 million gallons per day.
Cantú said that while the IBWC faced “a constellation of events you don’t have control of,” the water board’s “outrage is the same.”
“We can’t lose focus,” Cantú added. “The plant has to operate.”
It is unclear what the state agency will do after Thursday’s deadline given the IBWC has said it will be unable to reach compliance.
Many want the water board to escalate its enforcement.
During the five-hour-long meeting, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre urged the board to impose a financial penalty, also known as an administrative civil liabilities fine, on the IBWC for its continued water rights violations.
According to the water board’s website, violators have 20 days to request a hearing before the board issues the penalty. In instances where wastewater agencies spill sewage into the environment, the minimum state penalty is $1 per gallon, per the agency’s guidelines.
The board typically has issued such fines to private entities and water districts, but not the federal government. But Aguirre and several others who spoke believe the board should exercise that power regardless of the entity involved.
“By doing so, it would send a very clear message that this state agency is committed to addressing this issue under the leadership of governance,” she said. “It would send a clear message that environmental standards and public health are nonnegotiable and that the federal government, like any other entity, must be held accountable for its actions.”
The IBWC was also hit with a notice of violation from the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District over sewage odors it linked to the Hollister Pump Station June spill. More than 150 public complaints about the stench were sent to the district.
In a Monday letter to the district, the federal agency said it does not believe a violation occurred because the pump station failed due to “large volumes of sediment” from Mexico “over which the USIBWC has no reasonable control.” The facility also said its wastewater odor treatment system at the pump station has been “fully functional.”
Additionally, the IBWC said that based on a map of complaints, the source of odors is likely wastewater in the Tijuana River Valley, not from the pump station spill.
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