I love boogie boarding in San Diego, California.
But, as a safety specialist, I enter the waters with some trepidation. For decades, untreated sewage and toxic pollution from Tijuana, Mexico, have flowed across the U.S.-Mexico border into San Diego’s ocean waters, creating one of the most severe and persistent environmental and public health crises in the country.
Now, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is in town to tell Mexico to stop the sewage.
Lee Zeldin made the demand during an Earth Day trip to the California-Mexico border, where he toured a plant in San Diego County that treats the sewage as a secondary facility and flew along the frontier to see the Tijuana River. He also was scheduled to meet with SEALs.Zeldin said that in the next day or so, his agency will present Mexico a to-do list of projects to resolve the decades-long environmental crisis, but he stopped short of specifying how the Trump administration would hold Mexico accountable if it does not act.The problem is “top of mind” for President Donald Trump, Zeldin said, while adding that they have not talked about possibly imposing tariffs if nothing is done.“We’re going to know whether or not Mexico is going to do its part to resolve it, and then we’ll go from there, as far as strategy and tactics,” Zeldin said.
Zeldin and his EPA team are creating a “comprehensive list of everything that we believe with full confidence is going to end the crisis” for projects on both the U.S. side of the border and Mexico. He spent the evening with Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s Environment and Natural Resources secretary, to confer with her on plans.
“We did it yesterday during the meeting, where one particular project as it relates to diverting 10 million gallons per day of water from the Tijuana River Valley, sewage from the Tijuana River valley to the dam, will help relieve stress,” he said.”And they were saying it was going to take until the middle or end of 2027, and we started talking through it. It was a very good collaborative discussion where at the end of the back and forth, the Mexican officials were saying that they believe that we would be able to take off a year of that timeline.”
The dire nature of the situation cannot be overstated, and groups are clamoring for President Donald Trump to declare it a national emergency.
On Wednesday, the environmental group American Rivers ranked the Tijuana River No. 2 on its annual list of the nation’s most endangered rivers, up from No. 9 on the list last year. The group said it elevated the river on the list, right behind the first-ranked Mississippi River, to bring greater attention to the waterway’s chronic pollution problems and the lack of action to clean it up.Activists with another group, Surfrider Foundation, are also circulating a petition calling for President Trump to declare a national emergency to expedite efforts to curb the flow of untreated sewage and clean up the river.“The Tijuana River has moved from just being a pollution problem to being a public health crisis. Elevating the Tijuana River on our most endangered rivers list reflects that urgency,” said Ann Willis, American Rivers’ California regional director. “What we need urgently is for the Trump administration to make a federal emergency declaration. This would free up funding to address some of the right-now problems.”
Navy SEALs, who undergo rigorous and prolonged water-based training at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado and other nearby sites, have been repeatedly exposed to these polluted waters. The Department of Defense Inspector General reported that between January 2019 and May 2023, there were 1,168 documented cases of acute gastrointestinal illnesses among SEAL candidates, presenting symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, attributed to these polluted waters.
A notable 39% of those cases, or 457 people, were diagnosed with those illnesses within a week of being in ocean water that surpassed the state’s limits for contamination.Between February and September 2024, “the amount of enterococcus bacteria in the water exceeded state safety levels” in 146 of 192 tests, or 76%, conducted on samples retrieved from the beach north of Naval Amphibious Base Coronado and 27 of 36 tests, or 75%, of samples tested from the beach south of the base, the report detailed.But Naval Special Warfare Command relocated only 12 of 265 Navy SEAL candidate water training exercises, or roughly 5%, within that same time period, according to the report. Additionally, on a visit during “Hell Week” in 2023, the inspector general report noted the command did not reschedule or relocate training on three occasions when nearby beaches issued closure advisories for excessive enterococcus bacteria.”Consequently, Navy SEAL candidates were exposed to contaminated water during these three ocean training events,” the report said.
Kate Monroe, a Marine Corps veteran and CEO of VetComm — which advocates for disabled veterans and those navigating the VA’s complicated health system, likened the situation to the infamous Camp Lejune.
Monroe called it the “next Camp Lejeune” crisis, which sickened Marines with contaminated drinking water at the North Carolina Marine Corps base camp for nearly three decades. The crisis has cost the U.S. billions of dollars, including legal costs and settlements to vets and their families.”This is going to be, in my opinion, the next Camp Lejeune water problem that cost our government $21 to $25 billion,” she said. “That’s just in the compensation directly, like the lawsuit portion of it. That doesn’t cover all the compensation you have to pay these veterans tax-free for the rest of their lives. I would say that this issue here in San Diego, if you look at it over the time that people have been training here, you’re looking at another $21 to $25 billion, plus all of the compensation that’s going to come. It would be cheaper for our country to fix this than it would to allow it to continue.”
Personally, I love the America First environmental protection priority that the agency instituted after Zeldin arrived. It beats yellow water and the green energy scams from previous administrations.
Now, for a fond look back at when I was willing to enter the local waters.
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