Interim Fix for Toxic Sewage Fumes at Tijuana River Hotspot

Photo credit: Veriditas Rising & Surfrider Foundation

The Commission unanimously approved the County of San Diego’s application to extend two pipe culverts at the Saturn Boulevard crossing of the Tijuana River. The project will redirect contaminated river flows so they are released below the river's surface during low flow conditions, rather than freefalling six feet into the channel and generating the turbulence that drives toxic off-gassing. Weir caps on the remaining culverts and riprap stabilization of the extensions round out the engineering approach.

The permit was approved with six special conditions addressing multi-agency coordination, habitat and species protection, water quality, and the preservation of public access along the California Coastal Trail, which runs along Saturn Boulevard.

Surfrider, as a co-leader of the Tijuana River Coalition, submitted a letter of support on behalf of the coalition's more than 65 member nonprofit and community-based organizations representing residents, youth, workers, families, scientists, doctors, businesses, and recreators throughout San Diego County and Tijuana. Coalition representatives also spoke in favor of the project at the hearing.

This is an interim measure. The County is pursuing a longer-term, more permanent solution, and Surfrider and the larger coalition will remain engaged to ensure that work moves forward.

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The Saturn Boulevard crossing has become ground zero for one of the most serious environmental justice crises in the United States. Every day, millions of gallons of untreated sewage, industrial waste, and trash flow across the U.S./Mexico border, releasing hydrogen sulfide and other toxic air pollutants at concentrations several times higher than California's state standard. The communities bearing that burden include low-income families, children, immigrant communities, and Latino and Tribal populations who have endured these conditions for years with too little relief.

Exposure to hydrogen sulfide causes respiratory and gastrointestinal illness, headaches, nausea, and fatigue. This is the daily reality for neighbors living alongside the Tijuana River Valley, who also contend with a coastline that has been closed to the public due to sewage for the greater part of three years and a severely depressed local economy driven by this persistent transborder pollution crisis. Taken together, they reflect one of the most consequential environmental justice failures in the country. 

Today's approval is a meaningful step forward. But it is only a step, and the fight for a permanent solution continues.

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