IBERO Tijuana hosted a two-day forum on June 5 and 6 that brought together government agencies, academics, civil organizations and community leaders to tackle water quality and waste management in the Tijuana River watershed. The Tijuana River cleanup effort is gaining new attention on both sides of the border as contaminated flows continue to affect coastal communities from Playas de Tijuana to Imperial Beach, California.
The university organized the event in collaboration with CostaSalvaje, a coastal conservation group based in the region. The forum’s central goal was building what organizers called a “social innovation ecosystem” for integrated waste management across the binational Tijuana-San Diego corridor.
Federal and Local Agencies at the Table
Key participants included representatives from SEMARNAT (Mexico’s environment ministry), CONAGUA (the national water commission), Tijuana’s municipal environmental protection office, and the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, a U.S. facility that monitors the watershed on the California side. The presence of both Mexican federal agencies and binational research bodies pointed to the cross-border nature of the crisis.
The forum explored several concrete approaches: circular economy pilot programs, community-based plastic recovery initiatives, and recycling training clinics aimed at local entrepreneurs. No binding commitments were announced at the event’s conclusion.
A Crisis Decades in the Making
The Tijuana River watershed has been one of the most pressing environmental problems on the U.S.-Mexico border for years. Tijuana’s aging wastewater infrastructure lacks the capacity to treat the city’s sewage, leading to repeated system failures and raw discharges into the river and the Pacific Ocean. On the U.S. side, contaminated flows regularly close beaches in Imperial Beach and Coronado, sicken swimmers and emit airborne toxins including hydrogen sulfide gas.
The U.S. federal government has dedicated $653 million to addressing the pollution. One project currently under construction aims to prevent 5 million gallons per day of sewage from entering the river, while another would divert 10 million gallons per day of treated effluent. U.S. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in February 2026 that he is pressing Mexico to fulfill its financial commitments to the cleanup and expedite infrastructure upgrades.
Mexico-Side Action Still Developing
While most of the high-profile funding and construction has come from the U.S. side, forums like the one at IBERO Tijuana represent an effort to build capacity on the Mexican side of the border. Community-level waste reduction and recycling programs could help reduce the volume of trash and pollutants entering the river system before they reach the ocean.
The forum took place on World Environment Day, June 5, and continued through June 6. It was first reported by La Jornada Baja California.