About 700 residents in the Granjas Familiares Unidas neighborhood of eastern Tijuana now have a functioning sanitary sewer system after waiting more than two decades. Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda inaugurated the new network on June 8, ending years of untreated wastewater flowing across streets and open ground in the colonia.
The project cost nearly 6 million pesos (roughly $300,000 USD). Crews from CESPT, the State Commission of Public Services of Tijuana, laid 1,632 meters of eight-inch pipe, built 37 inspection wells, and connected 180 household discharge points. Construction began in August 2025.
Wastewater Now Routed to City’s Main System
Before the project, residents had no way to channel household wastewater into Tijuana’s municipal collection network. Raw sewage ran across the surface, creating contamination risks and public health hazards. The new sewer lines redirect all residential wastewater into the city’s main system, eliminating that surface runoff.
Mónica Vega Aguirre, director general of CESPT, said the infrastructure will fundamentally improve domestic wastewater management in the area. The governor called it a historic commitment fulfilled for a community that had pressed its case for sanitation services for over 20 years.
Part of a Broader Push Into Eastern Tijuana
The Granjas Familiares Unidas project falls under the state government’s “Corazones” program, which targets the 50 most socially vulnerable areas across Baja California. CESPT has 21 water and sanitation projects planned for eastern Tijuana in 2026, aiming to expand service coverage in communities that have gone without basic infrastructure.
Eastern Tijuana has long been one of the city’s most underserved areas. Many colonias there developed informally over decades, outpacing the expansion of municipal water and sewer lines. The lack of sewer connections in parts of Tijuana is a key factor in the broader cross-border sewage crisis that has polluted the Tijuana River Valley and forced prolonged beach closures in San Diego’s South Bay. Recent reporting from the Times of San Diego found that more than three-quarters of Tijuana’s existing sewer network requires urgent rehabilitation, and parts of the city still have no sewage system at all.
The inauguration was first reported by Punto Norte.