The Tijuana River should not be flowing this time of year. But throughout the dry season, it has—delivering millions of gallons a day of an unnatural mix of water, neon green sewage and industrial waste from Tijuana through the city of Imperial Beach to the Pacific Ocean.
This 4.4-square-mile beach town of 27,000 largely working-class and Latino residents, sitting just south of San Diego, is appealingly affordable. But it also bears the brunt of Tijuana's population boom.
Its beaches just reopened last weekend, after having been closed for more than 1,000 days because of ocean bacteria levels that are a hundred times higher than safe amounts. The stench of rotting eggs after dark is overwhelming for south San Diego residents, keeping some awake all night.
Pollution in the river has been an entrenched environmental crisis for decades, with all sides pointing fingers at one another. Residents blame politicians for failing to find a solution. Local politicians blame Congress for not funding improvements in the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, which processes raw sewage from Tijuana.
The federal government blames Mexico for lax sewage regulations. The International Boundary and Water Commission says it's not its job to collect the wastewater from unknown sources that flow into the Tijuana River.
