A new report on the recent Tijuana sewage spill from a group of U.S. and Mexican officials with the International Boundary and Water Commission has some good news: It was much smaller than first thought. The original estimate was that a sewage line break caused 143 million gallons of effluent to spill into waterways; now it’s 28 million gallons.
But the report also has bad news — future sewage spills are coming because of poor sewage infrastructure in Tijuana. And the report fails to provide a satisfactory explanation of why Tijuana and Mexican government officials failed to contact U.S. officials for more than three weeks after the leak began Feb. 1. Notification only came long after the sewage spill caused huge headaches for San Diego coastal communities. Saying that Mexican authorities wanted to stop the spill first isn’t an explanation.
What’s jarring about this failure is that it comes at a time when this binational region’s political and business leaders have never seemed more in sync, teaming to preserve a dynamic economy straddling the border against the threat posed by President Trump, NAFTA’s loudest critic. The value of this binational relationship won’t be affected by the sewage scandal. But it remains inexplicable and unacceptable.
