San Diego County OKs more studies, money to fix South Bay sewage crisis

The Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a policy package Tuesday that aims to study and alleviate the Tijuana River Valley sewage crisis, even as a recent pact between the Trump administration and Mexico vows a “permanent 100% solution” by 2027.

Supervisor Paloma Aguirre, who has prioritized expanding the county’s role in the sewage crisis, had pushed the measure to put more teeth, including funding, toward a multi-point plan supervisors passed earlier this year.

The legislation accelerates county efforts to commission studies of the public health and economic impacts of the pollution, in addition to hiring a lobbyist for $130,000 to represent the county’s interests in Washington, D.C.

Another part of the package puts on the chopping block a marquee initiative of Aguirre’s predecessor, former Supervisor Nora Vargas, in a sign of the rift between them over the crisis. Under the plan passed Tuesday, the county would defund planning for the Gateway to the Californias regional park project along the U.S.-Mexico border.

While Vargas was still on the board, the county had inked a $500,000 contract with World Design Capital to advance planning for the project. With Aguirre’s plan, the efforts will become a sunk cost.

About $225,000 has already been spent, said county spokesperson Tammy Glenn. Now, the remainder will be redirected to studying how the county could remove a notorious “hot spot” site on Saturn Boulevard, where sewage cascading from the river exacerbates the release of toxic gas into the air.

“We are not going to build a brick-and-mortar building in the middle of a floodplain in the middle of a public health crisis,” Aguirre said. “What we’re going to do is use that money to remove the source.”

Her efforts to put the county on new footing on the crisis comes after the United States and Mexico agreed in July to have a host of key wastewater treatment projects completed by the end of December 2027.

With the deal, Mexico pledged to identify funding to build infrastructure that would redirect 10 million gallons of treated sewage from the Tijuana River to a site at the Rodriguez Dam. Construction is supposed to begin by December, with other infrastructure upgrades also on a tight timetable.

As of late last month, the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant in San Ysidro is now authorized to treat 35 million gallons of sewage a day — a goal that had already been set by International Boundary and Water Commission prior to the pact with Mexico.

While the bilateral agreement is pushing through needed infrastructure upgrades, a local public health crisis continues to exist, leaving a gap that county government needs to fill, Aguirre said.

“Washington isn’t dealing with this public health emergency, they’re dealing with the infrastructure in place to address it,” Aguirre said. “Public health stands squarely on our shoulders here at the county. It is our mandate. It is our responsibility, and that’s why we’re addressing it with urgent action.”

To study the health impacts of the crisis, Aguirre’s legislation expedites a planned epidemiological study of how the sewage has had adverse impacts on the health of South County residents. An ad hoc subcommittee created in the summer will explore different options for the study before reporting back to supervisors.

The study is expected to cost anywhere from $500,000 to $6 million, according to Aguirre’s legislation.

That same subcommittee will also commission a different $250,000 study on the economic impacts of the pollution for South County residents within the next year, Aguirre said.

With the defunding of the Gateway to the Californias project, that money will be used for another separate study of how the county could redesign the culvert at Saturn Boulevard.

At that spot, the Tijuana River flows through pipes running beneath the road, then dumps out in cascades that cause the toxic chemicals in the sewage to aerosolize.

A separate item passed unanimously by the board on Tuesday called for asking the state to earmark $50 million generated by the Proposition 4 bond measure for projects in the Tijuana River Valley.

Proposition 4, passed by voters last year, authorized the state to borrow $10 million for environmental projects in California.