Mexico Sends Tons of Sewage to San Diego, and Lee Zeldin Is Doing Something About It on Earth Day

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is flying out to San Diego Tuesday to address a “public health and environmental crisis” regarding sewage on the U.S.-Mexico border on Earth Day.

“There is nowhere more important for me to be tomorrow than on the border in California, dealing with this very important public health and environmental crisis,” Zeldin told reporters at a Monday morning news conference ahead of his flight.

“For decades, there has been raw sewage that’s been traveling across the border and Americans are very concerned with regard to beach closures, degradation of the Tijuana River Valley, concerns with public air, health quality,” Zeldin noted. “It’s been going on for too long, and we have to urgently and deliberately pursue and implement a solution that permanently ends this.”

Earlier this month, Mexico completed its San Antonio de los Buenos Wastewater Treatment Plant, which treats approximately 18 million gallons of sewage per day, the Coronado Times reported. The U.S. is rehabilitating and expanding its treatment plant, the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, in a project that launched last fall and is projected to take five years to complete.

The International Boundary and Water Commission reported on April 9 that Mexico would start releasing five million gallons a day of sewage into the Tijuana River for the next five days as authorities repair a critical junction box that forms part of the International Collector project.

That flow partly abated a few days later, but many beaches in Coronado, the coastal city next to San Diego, remained closed as of Saturday.

During a Coronado City Council meeting last week, Mayor John Duncan said the crisis has reached a “critical turning point of awareness” with the Trump administration.

Zeldin told reporters that he will meet with Mexico’s environmental secretary, and he will host a news conference with Navy SEALs, who have gotten sick due to the contamination. He will also visit a local wastewater treatment facility, meet with businesses and elected officials, and take a helicopter tour of the border.

In December, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, touted President Joe Biden signing a bill allocating $250 million for the wastewater project.

When asked about that funding, Zeldin mentioned another source of funding—the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement that President Donald Trump signed in November 2018 and which went into force in July 2020.

The EPA head said Mexico had failed to obligate $88 million for projects on the Mexican side, under the USMCA.

Tensions between the U.S. and Mexico have increased since Trump imposed tariffs on America’s southern neighbor, citing Mexico’s trade surplus with the U.S. and the border crisis.

Trump recently threatened to impose additional tariffs on Mexico for failing to send Texas water under the terms of a 1944 treaty.

“Mexico owes Texas 1.3 million acre-feet of water under the 1944 Water Treaty, but Mexico is unfortunately violating their Treaty obligation,” the president posted on Truth Social earlier this month. “This is very unfair, and it is hurting South Texas Farmers very badly.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledged that Mexico had not met its commitments under the treaty, citing drought conditions. She said Mexican officials sent a proposal to the U.S. in order to work out a solution.

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