TJ Sewage Dilemma Becomes US Hazardous Waste Headache

The Tijuana sewage problem was a problem back in 1995 when I moved from Arizona to California . . . Coronado beachfront to be precise. That was over thirty years ago. When you fork out the money to live in a house right beside the Pacific Ocean, somehow the subject of polluted water and Tijuana sewage plants never comes up for discussion.

We were constantly at the beach in those days. If we weren't entertaining guests from Arizona, then we were building elaborate sandcastles, taking long barefooted walks where the wet sand meets dry, collecting seashells, watching the Navy SEALS practice their maneuvers . . in and around the filthy water. But in those days we had no idea.

My son left home early in the morning and headed to the beach for his P.E. class, "Surf P.E." He was in that water at least five days a week, most often seven days. Many mornings he was joined by pods of dolphins, catching the waves alongside him. As the years went by, he would more often be joined by hypodermic needles and human feces in the water.

He still surfs but now travels farther north to do so, up near Torrey Pines. The water appears cleaner up there but who knows. We thought Coronado was clean.

Every now and then the "do not enter" signs would appear along the beach. Always after a storm. And then more and more often, when the weather had been calm. I haven't walked barefoot on the beach in many, many years.

A lot of people from Arizona flooded southern California as the years went by. They would spent the entire summer in Coronado to get away from the summer heat in Arizona. We nicknamed them "Zonies". They were everywhere in the summer and I would see more friends and neighbors here in California then I would ever run into in Arizona. Coronado is now half full-time residents and half second-home residents. It has changed the makeup of the town.

More and more I'd run into someone from Arizona who would tell me about getting violently ill from the water, the Pacific Ocean on the Silver Strand. I believed them but thought it was the rare occurence.

Recently, "Navy SEAL Candidates Sickened by Training in Sewage-Laced Ocean Water, Pentagon Watchdog Finds" described how the Navy SEALS are getting ill from the water.

I thought the pollution was a recent problem. But I have learned it began in the late 1800s and really began to present an issue by the 1920s. Mexico was always behind in correcting the problem.

In the 1920s, when Tijuana had a population of roughly 5,000, the city’s first sewage treatment effort – a septic tank – oozed wastewater into the Tijuana River, and then the surf.  

I found a really good investigative article written by Dennis Wagner, Craig Harris, Julieta Soto and Madeline Yang in the The Coronado News. I think you'll enjoy reading "Promises, Promises: Bitter feuding, wasted money and treaty violations equals no solution".

If you think that this doesn't affect us here in Bonita, you are wrong. The water in Imperial Beach is so pungent that the County is providing free air purifiers to them. Many people are reporting breathing and lung illnesses.

That plume has reached Coronado and they, too, will at some point start smelling the stench. And once that happens, so will we. We get all our wonderful breeze from that area around Coronado.

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