The head of Tijuana’s water utility publicly acknowledged on May 3 that raw sewage continues to discharge into the Tijuana River, even as crews work on a series of infrastructure repairs aimed at reducing the flows.
CESPT (Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana) Director Mónica Vega Aguirre made the admission while outlining repair projects funded through a binational partnership. The statement marks a rare public concession by a Mexican official that the decades-long cross-border sewage crisis remains far from resolved.
Pump Station PB1 at Center of Repair Effort
The most critical project is the rehabilitation of Pump Station PB1, a key node in Tijuana’s wastewater collection system. Funding for the PB1 work comes from the North American Development Bank (NADBank) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the framework of IBWC (International Boundary and Water Commission) Minute 333, a binational agreement governing cross-border water infrastructure.
Repairs to PB1 have been in progress for months. In early 2025, IBWC Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner wrote that after visiting Mexican counterparts she had “not seen any improvement in wastewater flows, specifically regarding reductions in both transboundary flows in the Tijuana River.” The current work represents a continued push to bring the station back to full capacity.
Sewer Collectors Targeted Across Multiple Neighborhoods
Beyond PB1, Vega Aguirre described work on sewer collectors in several Tijuana neighborhoods: Colinas de la Presa, Rosario Salado, Otay Constituyentes, and the Alamar area east of the city. These collector lines funnel wastewater toward treatment facilities, and when they fail, raw sewage spills into open channels that drain to the river.
A major pipe collapse in eastern Tijuana in January 2026 sent millions of gallons of untreated wastewater across the border into San Diego. That incident involved the Insurgentes Collector, a three-mile pipe that moves roughly 900 liters of wastewater per second. The collapse prompted renewed calls from U.S. officials and environmental groups to accelerate Mexican-side repairs.
Binational Frustration Grows
On April 7, residents in San Ysidro held a protest over the ongoing sewage contamination, which has fouled beaches on both sides of the border and forced closures at Imperial Beach. The EPA-backed funding program overlaps with a broader $32 million U.S. investment previously reported by BDN.
Mexico pledged $144 million over five years in rehabilitation efforts as part of agreements signed with the U.S. in 2022. PCL Construction holds a $42.4 million design-build contract to expand the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant on the U.S. side, but that expansion cannot solve the problem if Tijuana’s own collection system keeps failing.
Vega Aguirre’s comments were first reported by Punto Norte on May 3.