SAN DIEGO — The Trump administration and Mexican officials had a positive meeting Monday night on addressing sewage flowing into California and are developing plans to address the decades-old issue, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Tuesday.
What happened: Zeldin, speaking at the Marine Corps base in San Diego, said he had a 90-minute conversation with Mexican Environment Secretary Alicia Bárcena and both sides agreed to collaborate on steps to repair and upgrade an international sewage treatment plant that cleanses Mexican wastewater before it enters the United States.
The South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant has struggled to keep up with increased flows as the city of Tijuana grows. Major infrastructure upgrades agreed on in 2018 and funded through the U.S.-Mexico trade agreement negotiated by Trump during his first term aren’t yet finished, allowing billions of gallons of raw sewage to reach the Tijuana River Valley and eventually the ocean.
Zeldin credited the positive developments to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist, who he said is more willing to discuss the issue than past Mexican leaders. He said EPA staff, the agency’s Office of Land and Emergency Management and their Mexican counterparts will now work to announce specific details “over the course of the coming days, over the course of the next couple weeks.”
