The Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana (CESPT), the city’s water and sewer utility, has completed the rehabilitation of deteriorated sanitary sewer pipes across seven streets in Colonia Francisco Villa, one of Tijuana’s oldest neighborhoods.
Crews replaced aging pipe on Calixto Contreras, Pablo López, Rodolfo Fierro, Juan Medina, Francisco Villa, Tomás Ornelas, and Manuel González. The work focused on swapping out failed sections and restoring proper drainage flow through the colonia’s decades-old system.
Aging Pipes in One of Tijuana’s Oldest Colonias
Colonia Francisco Villa sits in central Tijuana, where many residential sewer lines date back decades. Pipes of that age are prone to cracks, root intrusion, and collapses that cause sewage backups into homes and streets. CESPT said the rehabilitation targeted the worst segments in the neighborhood.
Tijuana’s sewer infrastructure has been under growing strain as the city has expanded. Since 2017, engineers have described a “whole system failure” in parts of the network, with aging collectors and pump stations unable to keep pace with the metropolitan area’s population of roughly 2 million people.
Broader Maintenance Push Across the Region
CESPT said similar sewer rehabilitation work is currently underway in other parts of Tijuana and in Playas de Rosarito, about 20 minutes south along the toll road. The agency did not specify which colonias are next or provide a total budget for the maintenance campaign.
The local work comes as binational efforts to fix Tijuana’s larger wastewater infrastructure move forward. Mexico has committed roughly $110 million (about 1.98 billion pesos) to rehabilitate collection systems across the city, while the U.S. has funded upgrades to the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant on the American side of the border. Those larger projects target the major trunk lines and pump stations that carry sewage to treatment facilities.
For residents of older colonias like Francisco Villa, the street-level pipe replacements address a more immediate problem: raw sewage pooling in roads and backing up into homes when corroded lines collapse. CESPT has not announced a timeline for completing the broader maintenance program.
This story was first reported by Jornada BC.