Council Moves Forward to Declare Tijuana Sewage Crisis an Emergency

Coronado is taking steps to pronounce the ongoing Tijuana sewage crisis a local emergency.

In a 3-2 vote, the Coronado City Council directed city staff to draft a resolution declaring a state of emergency, which is expected to return to the council at its March 1 meeting.

Despite a divided vote, the entire council agreed that the untreated sewage from Tijuana that is dumped daily into the Pacific ocean is catastrophic. It has prompted lengthy beach closures, reports of illness, and economic impact to local businesses. And it has been happening for decades.

The disagreement, rather, was in whether the legal declaration of an emergency would accomplish anything.

The matter was debated in September and again in January, but to summarize: Declaring an emergency is a legal mechanism that governing bodies can use to request funding or sidestep certain requirements to expedite repairs of infrastructure.

Critics of the move, therefore, say that declaring an emergency is mere symbolism. Coronado does not manage the infrastructure that is causing the problem, so it does not need funding or procedural lenience.

But supporters say symbolism matters. Other neighboring cities have declared their own emergencies, and if Coronado did the same, it could make advocacy easier.

Kelly Purvis, who was installed as the fifth member of the council on Feb. 4, cast the tie-breaking vote after the four-member council was split during a January meeting.

“We still have our beaches closed, people are getting sick, and I’m talking to people in town who have told me that they’ve been impacted,” she said.

While the declaration might not do anything legally, she said, symbolism matters. She, along with Mayor John Duncan and Council Member Amy Steward, voted in favor of the declaration.

Council Member Mark Fleming worried that declaring an emergency would hurt the local economy. Business owners in the community have said that the ongoing sewage crisis is impacting their sales.

Fleming argued that, with repairs to Mexico’s San Antonio de los Buenos Wastewater Treatment Plant nearly complete, and with the dry season approaching, water quality might not be an issue this summer. Wet weather exacerbates transboundary flow and often precedes beach closures. The new plant will have a capacity of 18 million gallons per day.

“Now, right in the season when potential visitors to the island would be booking their hotel rooms, we’re going to throw that big red flag out,” he said. “And then, by the time summer rolls around, we think, very likely, that our beaches aren’t going to be closed.”

Duncan said he was “very concerned” that the plant was not going to be completed in March as projected, based on conversations he had with staff at the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC). The plant is currently listed as “under construction” on the IBWC’s web portal, which tracks projects in Mexico.

The plant was expected to be complete last fall, Duncan pointed out, and it is still not finished. Duncan said he hoped it would be running by May. Frank Fisher, the public affairs officer for the IBWC, told The Coronado Times in January that he expected it to be completed in the first half of 2025.

Further, Duncan said, a local declaration of emergency could help Coronado appeal to the Trump administration about ongoing missed deadlines. In addition to Mexico’s delays, the IBWC has also experienced delays in its own projects which.

Steward argued in favor of the declaration, saying that if Coronado declared an emergency, the state might as well, which could pave the way for state funding or carry more weight at the capitol.

“(State law) says that, in order to declare an emergency, the local affected city must – must, that’s a pretty strong word – declare an emergency before the state can declare an emergency,” Steward said.

But Council Member Carrie Downey countered that Imperial Beach, which is impacted even more severely than Coronado is, has already declared its own emergency. And, she said, Gov. Gavin Newsom has already said that, because the IBWC is a federal office, the sewage crisis is a federal matter. In Oct. 2023, he declined to declare a state-level emergency.

“The question is: Why?” Downey said. “What will it do? It wasn’t necessary to get all the money we’ve gotten so far.”

Fleming backed Downey’s position, pointing out that the IBWC already has funding for its sewage treatment infrastructure projects.

“These wastewater treatment plants take time,” he said. “It’s a very difficult, industrious project, and it’s going to take time.”

The largest of the US projects to address the issue is the expansion and rehabilitation of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, a project that launched in Oct. 2024. It is expected to take up to five years to complete.

Still, the majority of the council said that, if there was a chance the symbolic move would help the matter, it was a chance worth taking.

“This is a true emergency to our people, to our Navy SEALs, to the border patrol, to everybody in the region,” Duncan said. “(The emergency declaration) might be helpful. I can’t guarantee it. But it might be.”