Why this matters
Pollution in the Tijuana River has for decades impacted communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. As officials seek solutions, the public health crisis continues to plague residents.
The same week politicians in Congress and the State House announced progress on a decades-old pollution crisis in the Tijuana River Valley, officials also announced a major new spill.
The U.S. International Water and Boundary Commission notified the public Friday morning that Mexican officials reported a failure at the Insurgentes Collector wastewater system Thursday night that will cause 11.5 million gallons of sewage and chemicals to spill into the Tijuana River daily, pending repairs.
Officials did not specify how long repairs would take.
U.S. officials say they are monitoring the situation, and IBWC Commissioner Chad McIntosh has been in communication with Comisión Internacional de Límites y Aguas Commissioner Adriana Reséndez at the IBWC’s Mexican counterpart agency.
The IBWC said the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant has not been affected.
A statement from the IBWC reaffirmed Commissioner Reséndez’s “commitment to take every possible action, as quickly as possible, to repair the collector.”
Earlier this week San Diego County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre, who prioritized this issue for years as mayor of Imperial Beach, flew to Sacramento to lobby for Assembly Bill 35, which would clear away regulations in order to expedite money appropriated for projects to address Tijuana River pollution.
After the Assembly’s Committee on Natural Resources voted unanimously in favor of the bill on Monday, Assemblymember David Alvarez celebrated the results with Supervisor Aguirre in a video posted to social media.
“We know the problem is big, we know the problem requires federal action,” Alvarez said. “But we also just don’t want to stand by and not do something about, particularly, the smell, the pollution, that’s happening in the air today.”
Two California members of Congress announced another development Thursday, just hours before the latest spill began.
U.S. Rep. Juan Vargas and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla said they had arranged nearly $3.5 million in federal aid for a dredging project to remove sediment, trash and debris from Smuggler’s Gulch to reduce pollution and flooding in local communities.
“Our congressional delegation has secured over half a billion dollars in federal funding to address pollution in the Tijuana River Valley,” Rep. Vargas said in a statement. “While I’m glad to add to that total today, our work is far from over. I’ll continue fighting for the clean water, air and land our communities deserve.”
“It is inexcusable that, in 2026, toxic waste and raw sewage are still contaminating Southern California’s air and water, shuttering public beaches and posing dangerous health consequences to Tijuana River Valley families,” Sen. Padilla added in the statement.
The latest massive spill underlines the urgency of addressing a problem which continues to impact communities in the river valley. inewsource spent much of the past year interviewing more than 100 people who live and work in the Tijuana River Valley for a project called “Home Sick” that sought to document and humanize the health crisis.
“Let’s be clear, this is not an isolated incident; it is a cycle of failure that our families have been forced to endure for decades,” Supervisor Aguirre said in a statement to inewsource Friday. “For families living near the Tijuana River, the clock hasn’t just run out; it has been broken for years. We can no longer be held hostage by slow-moving international repairs.”
