U.S., Mexico sign pact to solve Tijuana River sewage crisis

(The Center Square) — The United States signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday with Mexico, launching a permanent solution to end the Tijuana River sewage crisis.

Upon arriving in Mexico City on Thursday morning, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin met with Mexican officials to discuss what Zeldin called a 100% solution to end the crisis.

The Mexican government supported the solution and signed a detailed MOU with the U.S.

During the crisis, millions of gallons of raw sewage from Tijuana have continued to flow this year into San Diego, shutting down beaches and forcing the relocation of Navy SEAL training. In addition, a University of California San Diego study showed pollutants in the air and water.

Zeldin said the memorandum meets the Trump administration’s three top goals:

• Mexico will pay the $93 million in Minute 328 funds that they have not yet paid. Minute 328 is a 2022 agreement between Mexico and U.S. to complete projects to treat sewage.

• The timeline for completion of the remaining Minute 328 projects has been reduced.

• Mexico and the U.S. enter into a new Minute pact to achieve a 100% permanent solution.

“We wanted to come here [Mexico City], sign this agreement, and report back the great news to all the millions of concerned residents in Southern California,” Zeldin said during a Zoom press conference before signing the MOU Thursday.

The solution includes the remaining Minute 328 projects, plus additional projects that aim to permanently stop untreated sewage water from harming public health and the environment.

The MOU states the remaining Minute 328 projects are scheduled to be completed by December 2027, with six projects set for construction in 2026 and five more projects being built in 2027.

In the MOU, Mexico is committed to allocate its Minute 328 funds toward the completion of the remaining projects, with $46 million allocated for 2026 and another $47 million for 2027.

The MOU also stated both counties will enter into a new Minute agreement by December 2025, or sooner, which establishes additional projects.

Zeldin said creating a new Minute pact was necessary to achieve a 100%, permanent solution to the Tijuana River sewage crisis. He said Minute 328 was only an 80% solution.

“With the projects as is, we were looking at an 80% solution that as each month and year would pass, as infrastructure would get further stressed in Tijuana as population would increase, that last Minute, that last deal, would become further outdated faster,” Zedlin said.

Zeldin said the desire to establish a 100% solution came after he took a trip April 22 to San Diego, where he toured the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, met with Navy Seals and took a helicopter tour of the southern border. He also participated in a bipartisan roundtable with local elected officials.

Zeldin noted he saw firsthand the problems residents were facing.

“What the residents of Southern California need and deserve, what they have been waiting for for too long, isn’t just a solution that is a bandage for that moment, but a permanent 100% solution,” the EPA administrator said.