Inside the sewage crisis impacting border communities in San Diego

[0:00] This Earth Day, we want to look at a smelly problem plaguing both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, [0:05] a sewage plant built in the early 1990s that now cannot handle the volume of people that live near it. [0:10] And ultimately, unless action is taken, sewage waste water is being dumped every single day into the ocean. [0:16] As are Alex Bresche reports in tonight's Prime Focus, politicians on both sides of the aisle [0:20] and residents on both sides of the border hope a solution is on the horizon to clean their water and improve their lives. [0:26] Right now, we're essentially in the most southern part of San Diego, and we're in the corner of the nation. [0:41] I grew up in almost every single neighborhood alongside the River Valley. [0:44] So let's slow down here. These are the culverts. [0:48] All that foam you see, that's like buildup of toxic gases. [1:00] This isn't the imagery often associated with America's finest city. [1:06] San Diego has long held that nickname with pride. [1:09] It's dealt with a sewage crisis for much longer, impacting communities, especially near the border. [1:15] The makeup of the neighborhood hasn't changed. [1:17] What's really changed is how impactful this river has been now. [1:21] Like what's coming through it and the quantities now. [1:25] For Ramon Chayrez, that's meant a life of avoiding the water in his own backyard. [1:30] What's happening now is all these different communities and all their kids are being exposed [1:35] to a lot of toxic gases coming from that river. [1:38] And that's the thing that stands out the most right now for us is why has this issue lingered for so long? [1:45] And why have the communities that live alongside the border, why have they had to like bear the brunt of it? [1:51] From here, it's just three miles before the river dumps into the Pacific Ocean. [1:57] Pollution has been an issue between San Diego and Tijuana for decades. [2:03] In 1990, a joint U.S.-Mexico effort resulted in the building of an international wastewater treatment plant [2:09] designed to treat wastewater pump from Tijuana before it makes it to the U.S. [2:13] The problem? Tijuana's population back then was roughly 700,000. [2:18] Today, that number is more than 2.2 million, severely outgrowing the capacity of that one plant. [2:24] Falk Fetterson is a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, specializing in how currents and ocean waves flow. [2:33] The beach here is under advisory almost all the time. [2:38] And the reason for that is because of the sewage that's getting transported across the border in the Tijuana River, [2:43] into the Tijuana River estuary, and then comes out and often flows to the north. [2:48] And then also six miles south of the border, they're dumping about 20 million gallons a day of raw sewage into the water. [2:55] And that water can make its way relatively concentrated still up to here. [3:00] So we just crossed into the Mexican side of the border. [3:07] We're about to pull off the highway here. [3:09] Depending on who you talk to, this is a problem that's plagued both Tijuana and San Diego for the better part of 80 years. [3:18] And we're about to see the source of it. [3:21] You were saying that this is one of the channels where the sewage comes down? [3:33] This is the main source of sewage that's in the summer months, polluting beaches and Imperial Beach. [3:42] Serge Didina is the former mayor of Imperial Beach. [3:45] Now he's the executive director of Wild Coast, an organization that works internationally to conserve coastal and marine ecosystems. [3:51] I'm looking at this. This is, this is sewage. I mean, this looks like a river of sewage literally spilling in. [3:58] Yeah, it's 43 million gallons a day, 18 of which are treated. The other 25 million gallons a day of untreated sewage. [4:17] Further inland, we met Rosario, who works with Wild Coast tracking sewage through neighborhoods. [4:24] Because they're different, they're multiple unloading points from houses. [4:31] So, you have to go to each one of those houses to invite them to connect to the drainage. [4:37] But also, you have to be insisting to the authority so that they do their job of vigilance. [4:44] You're from here. This is, this is home. [4:49] And so, look, you're out volunteering, trying to beautify your community and clean up this place. [4:58] This is a problem that's plagued for so long. How does that? That must weigh on you. [5:02] I have more than 30 years living in Tijuana. It's frustrating to realize that the authority [5:10] of people who have already worked to do so much about washing supplies and washing supplies we use. [5:19] I think that we're not a dirty city. I think that I deserve to live in a city worth on which I'm working in which my family has. [5:27] And I hope that I'm clean and that's why I work with that goal. [5:31] None of us understand why the Mexican government and the Baja California government haven't dealt with this. We don't understand it. [5:40] There's renewed bipartisan hope that something will get done. [5:43] In December, the EPA and Administrator Lee Zeldin announced an agreement with Mexico that includes new infrastructure projects, research, enhanced monitoring, and plans for a critical site that accounts for Tijuana's rapid population growth. [5:57] And Democrats in the region, like Congressman Juan Vargas, are optimistic. [6:01] You know, I've been involved in this now for over three decades, and so there is an ebb and flow. [6:07] I think there's a real will on the Mexican side, and certainly there's a will on our side to get something done here. [6:12] But time is of the essence. [6:14] We see these reports of parents of swimmers and surfers saying that, you know, we believe that our kids are experiencing vomiting or sickness, things that are consistent with norovirus. [6:26] There are some people that would link it to what's happening in the ocean right here. [6:30] It absolutely is. [6:31] I'm one of the people who would link it to that. [6:34] One of the things our group has done is we've made measurements now for the past year of norovirus from the border up to the northern part of Imperial Beach and Silver Strand in collaboration with the San Diego County. [6:47] And the numbers here are off the charts. [6:51] Our collection of family photos are our collection of family photos. [7:02] It's all of this is in Imperial Beach, tailored by the pier, Cooper on the beach. [7:07] Back in September of 2024, I got really sick for about two weeks. [7:13] And looking at the tracking the numbers on the river gauge and anecdotally, the smell, it's absolutely connected. [7:24] Why not just relocate? [7:27] It's hard to leave home. [7:31] Bethany, like many residents in South Bay, San Diego, loves that the pollution issue is being talked about. [7:36] But she's also gotten her hopes up before. [7:39] Now she's hoping a solution will come before either they have to move or her kids are simply too old to really enjoy core memories in the neighborhood without fearing for their health. [7:49] Those moments have become fewer and far between. [7:52] Yeah, my hope is that we will get those back, you know, before my kid goes off to college. [8:00] We want them to be able to play in their neighborhood. [8:03] And that's not always feasible. [8:07] If one of them were to be sick, and if one of them had gotten sick the way I did, I think that we would be gone at least temporarily. [8:20] It would be a different discussion. [8:21] There's not much that I can do aside from leaving and advocating and educating. [8:30] It's a lot of stress. [8:31] You get emotional about this? [8:32] Yeah, it's my kids, you know.