Tijuana's illegal sewer hookups linked to cross-border pollution | Hacker News Reader

Tijuana's illegal sewer hookups linked to cross-border pollution

kpbs.org

128 pointsgeox190 comments

Yeah, this is one of those problems that leadership just ignores and passes to the next person.

"Reports of sewage leaking over the border into the San Diego region stretch back at least to the 1930s. Significant improvements were made in the 1990s, but Tijuana's wastewater facilities haven't kept pace with growth while many poorer communities remain unconnected to the city's sewer system." https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-25/tijuana-...

> Bautista Corona said city workers have collected 6,000 tons of trash from storm drains over the last three years through a program that specifically targets big items like couches and refrigerators.

Good griefs. That is a new one for me. I would not expect to see couches & refrigerators dumped into manholes anywhere.

Probably not so much forcing couches and refrigerators through the drains on streets, but tossing them into the typically open air channels where storm water flows on its way from street drains to rivers or the shore.

Some places have combined sewers where storm water drains into the same underground channes and pipes as sanitary sewage; it would be hard to dump couches and refrigerators there. But that's usually seen in cities with very old infrastructure: combined sewers don't make sense when you have sewage treatment plants. During a storm you have a lot more flow, and you'll exceed the capacity of your treatment plant and have to let untreated water through. Even in separate sewers, you have higher flow in the rainy season; utility sewer pipes aren't usually sealed at connections, so if there's a lot of ground water, it leaks into the pipes and flows through; the change in volume during a storm is usually not that fast, but flow rates during the rainy season will be significantly higher than the dry season.

Sounds like Tijuana has separate sewers, but lots of unauthorized connections from indoor plumbing to the storm sewers.

Living in the SF Bay Area, I have witnessed people pumping flood water into the sanitary sewer. There are some low-lying spots where the storm drains can fail to keep up with the storms, and people get desperate when their homes are flooding.

During large storms sewage does end up in the bay and ocean. SF county has pretty active monitoring and you can view hotspots in almost real time. San Mateo samples weekly and their warnings follow a moving average so their don’t swim warnings are delayed. Linda Mar is pretty consistently borderline or unsafe by county standards, bad news for the tech bro kooks on here. Personally I just try to not touch the creek water and hope for the best.

It's code in SF to send stormwater to the regular sewer.

In SF they hVe a combined system so there’s not alternative.

In peninsula there are separate storm drains in the streets. Better in theory! But they don’t permit a direct connection from your French drain’s sump pump into the storm system. So some people pump into their household sewer instead.

They're not being dumped down a manhole. More than likely, things like that are being dumped into the larger open storm drain canals. And often storm drains run along the courses of creeks or rivers that have been covered up/paved over, so it's more like throwing your garbage into the nearby river.

This also spills over (literally) into California - many of the beaches in San Diego are unswimmable due to contamination.

(ref: Went to Coronado Island beach. Went in Water. Lifeguards chased me down and told me to wash off really well...)

Isn't this endemic in beaches throught the country? I grew up in NY and one summer job I had was testing beaches for bacteria levels. Most beaches were one rainy day away from being closed down, and they were certainly nowhere near Mexico.

My impression around here (southern Ontario) is that when this happens (high e.coli counts after heavy rain) this is mostly due to runoff from farms and from seagull, goose etc feces, not human sewer overflows. Areas with high waterfowl populations are the worst for it.

> Most beaches were one rainy day away from being closed down, and they were certainly nowhere near Mexico.

I think this is the most salient point -- most beaches are probably fine most of the time, but when you get a big storm or some other event that causes a lot of runoff, the beaches quickly become health hazards. And it doesn't even need to be anything particularly nefarious, even just dumping a bunch of nutrients into the water will cause more things to grow, nasty things included.

I've been to plenty of beaches where after a strong rain, they had signs out on the beach warning about potential sewage runoff, and to avoid swimming in the water.

That's in tfa. The drainage pipes are discharging when there's been no rain at all (and there's not much rain in baja california)

I never knew this until I Googled 'is it OK to surf in the rain?'. In the context of urban beaches. I think the answer was yes, as long as it wasn't the first rain after a dry period, because of runoff from streets etc.

It's not just the street runoff. You have to consider all the stuff in the water basin that is draining into the ocean closest to the beach. For example, many coastal communities might not have a sewer system, using septic tanks and leach fields instead. When it rains enough, some of the runoff gets into there (ever seen pictures of septic tanks improperly secured that pop out of the ground after a rain?) and then moves down to the ocean. Then you also have agricultural/animal runoff if there are farms or ranches in the basin, and potentially industrial runoff if there's any heavy industry in the area too. And even if you have none of these factors, just the simple influx of nutrients can cause things like algal blooms that can be just as bad.

that's crazy, i grew up in Daytona Beach FL until I was 12 and I don't recall anything like this. Ever. Maybe because it rains so much there the runoff is basically clean? Also, i've vacationed up and down the AL and TX coast and have never heard of a beach closed because of bacteria/pollution.

Many older areas have no separate storm sewer system; rain goes into the regular sewers and significant rain will overload the treatment systems and lead to "bypass". Lots of these in the NE.

The entire city of Chicago is like this.

correct, many beaches in new england have been closed this year off and on due to heavy rainfall bringing bacteria from human waste

TJ runoff is at much worse levels, don't have link handy though

Many lakes are regularly closed for bacteria, definitely. Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and Lake Michigan far away from Chicago don't have this issue, but of course they are exceptional in volume.

Yeah you have to go up to Pacific Beach / La Jolla and farther north to avoid the runoff from the Tijuana river. Of course during long dry spells it is not so bad, because there is basically no runoff. Imperial Beach is almost always dirty, though.

You would love Acapulco, where everything drains into ocean

Unfortunately this is a common thing in Mexico (and extremely likely other 3rd world countries)

For example, in Puebla City there is a river (Atlixcayotl) that is literally where all the local industries and waterparks dump their "runoff" (let's be honest, poop and industrially-produced chemicals)

Which is a shame that this happens (even in 1st world countries). So much taking from land that has been living and forming for millions of years (the dirt is alive) and we dump all the poop/industrially-produced chemicals into the rivers.

Not to mention these rivers flow into oceans and the ocean currents do not respect any borders, the fish that are affected. The rivers that touch the soils that grow food (yes your meal was created from these soils)

Sorry I just meant to make a quick comment and it spurred into an entire mini-rant lmao.

I'm not sure if it's really true about this being a Third World issue, leaving aside the fact that Mexico is a well-developed nation with a large economy and outside the technical Cold War definition that nobody uses, I am not sure you can label Mexico "Third World". But the reason I object is there are a large number of American cities that have combined sanitary and storm sewers, including ones that are ridiculously wealthy like San Francisco.

When you see the well developed parts of Mexico you could say that it isn't a third world country... But once you see the poorer parts that quickly changes. The poorest parts of Mexico are very poor, unfortunately a very unequal country. Not to mention the Mexican government is consistently ranked among the most corrupt in the world.

> The poorest parts of Mexico are very poor, unfortunately a very unequal country

By this definition, the USA are a third world country then.

There is certainly a lot of inequality in the USA, but Mexico and other Central and South American nations take it to yet another extreme.

> By this definition, the USA are a third world country then.

Not even close

Appalachia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3O6bKdPLbw

San Francisco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_2dDbFD4FE

Chicago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNbGnPyFi8k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUQGiquHPgs

Dallas Texas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fEc1TZhT5Y

Greenville Mississippi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2SPHSCa-6Q

Now look at Oaxaca and Chiapas where people build their houses from stacked cinderblocks and take home plant clippings for fuel to cook dinner from their job as a gardener.

And more importantly compare the pay and purchasing power and the school systems. I don't think Americans realize how little Mexicans make and how expensive everything is to them except for labor.

None of those are examples of the third world

You just have not seen structural poverty at the state level

all the roads still work, there’s services, access to schools, technology (mines), property rights

So many riches that people of the first world take for granted

Looking at the poorest places, yes, absolutely.

Portland spent well over a billion dollars on the Big Pipe. It helped a lot but there are still sewer overflows a few times a year. Better than after every rain in a city that gets 9 months of rain a year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Big_Pipe

> I am not sure you can label Mexico "Third World".

I’m pretty sure you can say it’s a Third World country

You can say whatever you want of course, but 3rd world define countries that are neither aligned with the West or the East, in the Cold War. China is part of 3rd world countries.

It is called Developing nations today and Mexico is not part of either.

Funny, last time I was there (nearly two decades ago), the sewers were overflowing heaps of shit into the street gutters... Memorable. Crazy city, even for Mexico.

You might want to go back and see if that “crazy city” conclusion merits revision. I visited Tijuana last winter and was amazed how little it resembled stereotypes from two decades ago. No longer are there any safety concerns about walking or cycling across the city during the day, and I discovered that thousands of Southern Californians are now living across the border and commuting to work everyday, because cost of living is much cheaper in Mexico and crossing is fast with Global Entry.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/243797/ranking-of-the-mo...

Second most dangerous city in the world. You got lucky. It is foolish to advise people that Tijuana is safe.

I left out the world "[city] center" from my comment. Crime may well be a risk in certain neighborhoods that a visitor need not go to. But walking or cycling across the city center does appear to be safe based on the following:

* Upon arrival at the bus station I ask staff if they can recommend a safe route for me to cycle (I had a touring bike) the several km to near the US border. They say the center is safe, the bad barrios are elsewhere, and it was a bit silly that I would even be worried.

* I ask the first police I see the same question and get the exact same answer.

* I am occasionally passed by lycra-clad locals on expensive bikes. Here and there I see a lot of conspicuous American tourists of the fanny-pack variety walking around, mainly elderly. These are the sort of things that would not be done if people had to fear for their lives.

* I go into an Oxxo for some snacks and ask the clerk about safety. He says it hasn't been a concern in that central area for a long time now.

* I stand in a queue for two hours to cross the border. The people around me in the queue, Mexican and American alike, say safety hasn't been an issue in the city center for a long time now.

That is a difference from a couple of decades ago, when one was warned about even the city center and even in daytime.

You asked people whose job (and thus life) depends entirely on tourism if the place is good for tourism. Clever.

Which of those people I listed has jobs depending on tourism? Even the bus station staff I asked hardly count for that, as the bus in Baja is used mainly by locals, and the long-distance bus station is in a part of the city center some km from the city's touristic strip.

The first thing you see driving in to TJ are decrepit and destroyed buildings. We always made our way out of TJ as fast as possible, either on to the toll roads south to Ensenada or east out to La Rumorosa. Everyone I know, whether from Mexico or not, knows you don't really hang around TJ for long if you can help it.

Mexico is a beautiful country but it still has its problems. You've just kept to tourist areas if that's your view on it.

> Mexico is a beautiful country but it still has its problems. You've just kept to tourist areas if that's your view on it.

I spent last winter cycling the length of the peninsula, avoiding the highway. Didn't see a single touristy place until a month into the journey when I reached San Ignacio and Mulege. Then didn't see another touristy place again for weeks until La Paz.

On a previous trip to Mexico I cycled the length of the mainland from Mazatlan to the Guatemala border mainly on unpaved roads. I am well aware of the country's challenges and the need to ask about safety conditions. I stand by my assertion about Tijuana -- if safety in the city center were an issue for tourists and people passing through, local people would readily tell you that and elderly Americans wouldn't be strolling around carefree.

> The first thing you see driving in to TJ are decrepit and destroyed buildings

That describes a considerable portion of the world, including places where safety is not a concern.

Two decades ago thousands of Californians lived in Mexico and crossed via Sentri. That hasn’t changed much.

I was told that there has been a massive construction boom in recent years to build housing developments specifically for Americans who want to live on the Mexican side and commute, and the COVID era brought unprecedented interest. If this was already trend, it seems to have accelerated.

It’s likely that the wealth of those willing to do it has increased; when I had experience with it it was mainly blue-collar laborers stretching their dollars.

Imagine if all the trillions we poured into China for decades by making everything there we had built up Mexico instead.

Historically lots of US goods have been manufactured in Mexico. The difference is that Mexico's government is not highly coordinated like China's. The same resources would not achieve the same outcomes.

Maybe it's not too late

Is this news? I went to Big Bend park in like 1995 and was told to stay out of the Rio Grande unless I wanted disease.

There's a real problem in the US with cities that are near the US border. It's hard for anything to get done across the border by US entities. At least that's my hunch. Can anybody confirm if this happens with other near-border cities?

San Diego is located within an awesome ecosystem with a lot of fascinating native plants and animals. A lot of research into native stuff never crosses the border despite the fact that better data is often over there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylococcus_bicolor is one my favorite native plants. Notice how the image of the native distribution just stops at the border.

I'm not at all surprised that "Natural distribution of Xylococcus bicolor in California." shows the distribution stopping at the border of California. The text actually says "It is native to southern California and the Baja California Peninsula, south to the Sierra de la Giganta." so the known data does extend beyond the border.

I recognize that my initial example may have been ill-chosen since the Calflora range tool stops at the border, despite having data beyond it. However, the actual known data does support my point.

In the Calflora database, six percent of the Xylococcus Bicolor observations extend beyond the border. Most of these are dated, and the plants may no longer exist. Filtering for observations that are more recent than 1990, the number falls closer to two percent beyond the border.

Local researchers are aware of this issue, and I've come across it in various research papers on Xylococcus Bicolor.

This thesis on the region's ethnobotany frequently cites the border as a cutoff or dividing line in research. https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sdc/pds/ceqa/JVR/...

If you're truly curious the author of that thesis expanded his work into the book "Kumeyaay Ethnobotany: Shared Heritage of the Californias" that looks more closely at these issues.

A bit off-topic, this reminded me about the sewer connections between east and west Berlin, which apparently were shared in places but had grates installed to prevent people escaping from the east. They also had a subway which iirc served the west but went through a couple of east berlin stations without stopping because the route predated the split.

The article concludes:

> A long-term solution requires sustained investment of millions of dollars into identifying every illegal connection and correcting it.

Couldn't they just restrict flow through the system when it's not raining?

Then illegal connections would identify themselves in the form of overflowing toilets.

I don't understand how this would work... is there some surefire way of knowing it is raining, and then somehow opening up the storm drains in time for the runoff?

Remember that if this automatic opening-closing mechanism fails, you get widespread flooding, likely leading to a lot of property damage and maybe even some lives lost depending on the severity of the storm.

Sewers aren't really made in ways that make it easy to restrict their flow in a controlled manner. Storm sewers especially are designed for lots of unrestricted flow.

Even if it were possible, purposefully blocking flows so that they overflow into people's homes is an acute sanitary issue, especially when whenever you put a block, everything upstream is going to discharge at the lowest egress... If you're the lucky winner, you get not just your toilet overflowing into your house, but the neighborhood's toilets too.

Fixing this will be a big mess, but it'll probably need some amount of inventorying unpermitted buildings, allowing them to connect to sanitary sewers, and then auditing all unpermitted buildings to confirm where their sewage goes. Hopefully people built to make it easy/feasible to to switch to the proper sewer, but unpermitted buildings are what they are, I guess.

Putting colored dye down the drains and seeing if it comes out in the storm or sanitary sewers is a lot of work, but that's what it will take.

Sewage and tap water situation is a metric I use to judge countries if they care about their citizens! :)

https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Water-Quali...

Don't know why it says the Baltic's in unsafe. Most of the water there comes from deep underground wells. I'd rather have that than water washed with chlorine.

Yep. Lithuanian here. Tap water is safe. I heard about rare nuts who drink bottled water because they saw it on TV in movies. But that’s about it.

Good to hear! I don't know their sources.

It's pretty outdated, at least in regard to Eastern & Southern Europe.

It’s not even outdated. Drinking tap water here in Lithuania was safe since forever.

It seems chlorinated tap water shows up as "drinkable" on this map but really who wants that.

the federal appropriations bill signed last December cleared the way for the EPA to transfer $300 million to the International Boundary and Water Commission for infrastructure projects.

So is the US paying for sewer works in Mexico? This doesn't feel right to me when the article points out the problem is a failure of Mexican government and citizens to properly address the problem. How do we even know the money will be put to good use?

US (and EU, and Japanese…) aid to much of the developing world goes to building sewage, it is one of the key steps to improving community health.

None build as much as China, which is pretty crazy.

How do we even know the money will be put to good use?

I guess that is why it is going to an international organization that the US is a part of, instead of directly to the Tijuana, Baja California, or Mexico governments.

How does an international organization solve that problem? Are international organizations known for never being corrupt and wasteful? I wasn't aware. How does an international organization enforce illegally attaching sewers to storm drains?

If you look at foreign aid the US is ranked far from the best givers (those are mostly from Northern Europe) simply because of the strings attached: "We give you X if you buy Y from our War Industry" is not really foreign aid but war industry aid. International organizations are more often than not better at this as they don't give with one hand while taking with the other. Of course some are even worse, like the World Bank Groups.

How do you know any money used by any government isn't wasted. What would you like to do about it?

Some of it goes to a plant on the US side of the border, near the point where the Tijuana river crosses it, flowing north. Think of it as a kind of very direct foreign aid.

https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2023/06/05/san-diego-ha... https://www.water-technology.net/projects/tijuana/ https://www.ibwc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Press_Releas...

If its already affecting American territory, what are the other options? Invade Mexico and take over the land and administration of it? Bury our heads in the (contaminated) sand?

Diplomatic relations?? I don't think every international issue was solved by agreeing to throw money at an issue for a project that hasn't clearly stated how it will solve the problem permanently and all inside of a country with a relatively high location on the corruption perception index.

>How do we even know the money will be put to good use?

The IBWC is its own thing, directly run under the State Department, with its own engineering staff and field offices.

When we give similar water/sanitation aid to other countries, it goes through the USAID branch of the State Department. The US sends its own experts who live in the countries and direct the money to the best possible uses. https://www.usaid.gov/water-and-sanitation/us-global-water-s...

Because Mexico hasn’t or can’t fix the problem, so the US builds a massive sewage treatment plant that can take the entire flow of the Tijuana river.

> This doesn't feel right to me when the article points out the problem is a failure of Mexican government and citizens to properly address the problem.

Cleaning up Imperial Beach is very low on the Mexican government’s priorities

Mexico is a failed narco state, set your expectations accordingly.

It would be fixed overnight if the US didn't import. That is at least as much a part of the problem - the bad neighbour.

Mexican drug dealers who snuck into America import drugs from Mexicans in Mexico. Americans to blame. Nice victim-blaming.

I remember the US briefly had a president who wanted to protect the US-Mexico border but he got called racist by the people who profit from importing problems into America.

The OP seems to be making the commonly made point that drugs wouldn’t flow into the USA if there were not lots of Americans (rich and poor) who wanted to consume said drugs. Before you attack me, I am not trying to argue for or against that point, just noting that it is a common one on any of these HN threads.

That doesn't change the facts. The problem is the buyer, not the seller. If Mexico doesn't sell, someone else will. If Americans doesn't buy there's no other buyer. Mexico isn't the problem. The rich neighbour with bad laws is.

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