Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda signed a $30.8 million contract on April 27 to rebuild Tijuana’s oldest sewage pump station, a facility that has been partially broken since July 2022. The project targets Pump Station 1, a 1970s-era complex in Tijuana’s Zona Norte that sits near the Tijuana River channel and the U.S. border. When it works, the station keeps up to 1,400 liters per second of raw wastewater from flowing north into San Diego County.
The signing ceremony brought together three parties that rarely share a table: the governor, Tomás Torres of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 9 water division, and John Beckham, director general of NADBank (the North American Development Bank, a binational institution that finances border infrastructure). CESPT director Mónica Vega and SEPROA chief Víctor Daniel Amador also attended. CESPT is Tijuana’s municipal water and sewer utility; SEPROA is Baja California’s state water management agency, created under the current administration.
A Broken Pipe Since July 2022 Left Tijuana Sewage Flowing North
Pump Station 1 consists of two linked facilities: PB1A and PB1B. Both suffered pipe ruptures in July 2022 that forced operators to shut them down. PB1B has since been repaired and returned to normal operation. But the main emissions line connected to PB1A remains broken nearly four years later.
That single broken pipe has had outsized consequences on both sides of the border. Without PB1A, excess wastewater that Tijuana cannot process has been diverted to the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant on the U.S. side, overwhelming that facility’s capacity. At the same time, failures in the Tijuana River diversion system have allowed raw sewage to reach the river channel and, from there, the Pacific Ocean.
The results on the U.S. side have been severe. Imperial Beach, a small coastal city about five miles north of the border, has experienced hundreds of beach closure days since 2022. The city sued the U.S. government in 2024 over its failure to stop cross-border sewage flows. San Diego County’s South Bay beaches have posted health advisories so frequently that local surf shops report losing customers to other stretches of coastline.
On the Mexican side, colonias along the Tijuana River channel have lived with foul odors and contaminated runoff. Residents in Zona Norte, one of Tijuana’s densest neighborhoods, are closest to the broken infrastructure. The area also sits along the routes many cross-border commuters use daily to reach the San Ysidro port of entry.
NADBank Grants Cover $13.4 Million of the $30.8 Million Project
The total investment stands at $30.8 million. Of that, $13.44 million will come from the Border Environment Infrastructure Fund (BEIF), a grant program administered by NADBank that provides non-reimbursable financing for water and sanitation projects along the U.S.-Mexico border. The state of Baja California will cover the remaining $17.36 million.
The scope of work includes new sand and gravel removal systems, mechanized screens, motor control centers, flow control gates, and four high-capacity pump trains for both PB1A and PB1B. Crews will also perform maintenance on the pump station’s electrical substation and install flow meters to improve wastewater management across the system.
NADBank has financed border water projects for decades, but the scale of this single grant is notable. The BEIF program typically funds smaller upgrades. A $13.44 million non-reimbursable grant for one pump station reflects the severity of the Tijuana sewage crisis and the pressure from U.S. officials to find a fix.
Governor Ávila Olmeda framed the investment as unprecedented. “Never before has a state government invested this much in modernizing Baja California’s water infrastructure, across all municipalities, across all our plants,” she said at the signing event. She also pointed to the project as evidence of productive binational cooperation: “This shows our shared objectives, which is putting citizens on both sides of the border at the center.”
Beaches From Playas de Tijuana to Imperial Beach Stand to Benefit
If the rehabilitation works as designed, the upgraded pump station will prevent up to 1,400 liters per second of raw sewage from reaching the Tijuana River. That volume, roughly 370 gallons per second, currently flows toward the ocean or into the overtaxed South Bay treatment plant during peak events.
Playas de Tijuana, the beachside neighborhood popular with both Mexican families and a growing number of foreign residents, has dealt with water quality warnings tied to the same sewage flows. Surfers and beachgoers who use the stretch from Playas south to the border fence have reported brown water and foul smells during rain events and pump failures.
On the U.S. side, reduced cross-border flows could eventually ease the beach closures that have defined Imperial Beach’s public health record since 2022. The city’s economy depends on beach tourism, and prolonged closures have hurt local restaurants, hotels, and rental properties.
The project also fits into a broader sanitation upgrade plan for the entire Tijuana River basin. NADBank’s documentation describes the pump station rehabilitation as one component of a multi-phase effort, though timelines and budgets for subsequent phases have not been publicly released.
The contract was signed on April 27. No official completion date has been announced, but construction-phase milestones are expected in the coming months as crews begin equipment installation at the Zona Norte site. This story was first reported by Punto Norte.