Tijuana River Pollution Near San Diego

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. Madam Speaker, I rise once again to address what could very well be one of the greatest ongoing environmental disasters in the United States. I am referring to the billions of gallons of raw sewage, industrial waste, and other pollutants that flow down the Tijuana River and into San Diego's coastal waters.

These flows sicken our communities, shutter our local businesses, harm our tourism industry, endanger wildlife, and threaten our servicemembers and Border Patrol agents stationed in San Diego.

Just last month, researchers at San Diego State University released a report that shows that this pollution also poses a massive public health threat. The studies they cite reveal extremely troubling findings, like the fact that cancer-causing chemicals banned in the United States decades ago, including DDT and PCBs, have been found in the soil.

Waterborne contaminants include viruses like SARS-CoV-2, salmonella, listeria, hep B and C, and pathogens carrying antibiotic-resistant genes.

The report cites a recent study of bottlenose dolphins that had become stranded and died in San Diego waters. The dolphins died from sepsis caused by water contaminated by feces. This is the same water our troops train in and our kids swim and surf in.

Avoiding the water alone will not make you safe. Air quality monitors that were recently installed in the region have confirmed what residents have known for years, that the air itself is also polluted. Sewage that washes up on land dries, sending dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide into the air around people's homes.

The solution is simple. The United States owns and operates a wastewater treatment plant on our side of the border that has not been maintained. It is in desperate need of repair and expansion to handle the flows. President Biden included $310 million in his supplemental funding request that would make those repairs and upgrades possible. This is a small price to pay for the health of our community, our brave servicemembers, and our environment.

Many of the communities hit hardest by this pollution are low-income communities of color. I can't help but think if this was happening somewhere that wasn't 3,000 miles from here, like the Chesapeake Bay or even the Great Lakes, it would have been taken care of long ago.

We know that Mexico must also do its part. Much of their infrastructure has also fallen into disrepair. The good news is that Mexico is bound by a treaty we signed in San Diego in 2022 to spend nearly $150 million to fix their treatment plant.

Mexico, to its credit, has made great strides in the last year. They have repaired and replaced key infrastructure, like sewage pipes that redirect the contaminated water, and they have broken ground on a new wastewater treatment plant.

Madam Speaker, this is a public health, business, and national security disaster. The more we delay in addressing cross-border pollution, the more costly and difficult it will be to fix. I urge my colleagues to support this funding and ask that congressional leadership and appropriators include this funding in any upcoming spending package.

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