Last year, while Coronado’s beaches were largely closed due to the ongoing Tijuana sewage crisis, the U.S. Navy SEALs kept training.
Leaders say they will develop protocol for relocating, rescheduling, or canceling trainings when bacteria exceeds state safety standards. The change will be implemented no later than Dec. 31, said Rear Adm. Milton J. Sands III, commander of Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Command.
The move came in response to a Department of Defense Inspector General report that recommended water trainings be relocated, rescheduled or canceled when bacteria levels are elevated.
The report found that, between February and September 2024, the water surrounding Naval Amphibious Base Coronado was deemed unsafe about 75 percent of the time.
However, only 5 percent of water trainings during that same period were relocated. Outside the gates, beaches both north and south of the base were closed.
This period included the SEALs’ infamous Hell Week training in Sept. 2024, which was not one of the relocated trainings. Hell Week is a part of at the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (Sea Air Land) (BUD/S) training course for SEAL candidates. It’s notoriously grueling, and came under scrutiny after a SEAL candidate died during the training in 2022.
The report also recommends developing policy that clarifies the protocol for monitoring water quality and creates notification procedures for the NSW command when water is contaminated. The Navy uses San Diego County’s water test results.
“Our Sailors’ safety during SEAL candidate training and after graduation is paramount,” Vice Adm. J.V. Fuller, Naval Inspector General, wrote in his response to the report.
But, he said, relocation is a logistical hurdle.
“Naval Special Warfare (NSW) will have a challenge canceling or relocating 75 percent of their water training activities,” he wrote. “Practically speaking, NSW operators would require systems or protocols that would allow them to both train and operate while managing preventable risk.”
He suggested that conducting trainings on the San Diego Bay side of Coronado, rather than the NAB beaches, to mitigate exposure.
The NSW will establish a working group of experts in the fields of epidemiology, preventable medicine, and infectious disease to inform protocol.
The DOD IG report also recommends developing policy for monitoring water quality and determining when trainings must be adjusted. The Navy uses San Diego County’s water quality tests to gauge water safety, and the advisory suggested creating notification procedures for the NSW command when water is contaminated.
Between January 2019 and May 2023, NSW diagnosed 1,168 cases of acute gastrointestinal illness (such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea) among Navy SEAL and Special Warfare Combat Crewman candidates at NAB, the DOD IG report says.
Of those cases, 39 percent occurred within seven days of exposure to contaminated water, the report finds. It also notes that the Navy’s instruction on diving in contaminated water cautions that the effects can take years to present.
The NSW Command agreed with these suggestions, so the matter is considered resolved but still open. The DOD IG will close the case once a procedure for monitoring water quality is in place.
Leaders say the new procedure will be implemented by the end of the year.
ROOT CAUSE is storm drainage (rain run off) and sewage drainage (shit and piss) are COMBINED in an old city design.
That is WHY it is problem of mass COMBINED
rain run off and sewage drainage after it rains.
The US banned the COMBINED design many decades ago and heavily fines cutesy people that illegally COMBINE the two separate drainages.
Train on the beaches of Camp Pendleton, thats not to far from Coronado.
Yes it stinks and I have medical issues because of it. I’m a 83 yr old resident of IB also. What do I do? Sell my retirement dream home?
UNREAL!! This is simply “Beyond the Pale”!! Our military deserves better. This battle has been going on since before the time I lived there (1957-1960); albeit, not as bad then as now. The residents and visitors also deserve better.
Ah, the foul tides of geopolitics and raw sewage, converging like some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare off the California coast.
Let’s get one thing straight: the U.S. military has fought wars in jungles, deserts, tundras, and blasted-out hellscapes. But now, thanks to the uniquely dystopian realities of modern governance, they’re fighting in shit—literally. The great warriors of Naval Special Warfare, those peak specimens of American grit and fortitude, are conducting training operations in water so contaminated that even the bacteria are calling their lawyers.
And let’s be clear—this isn’t just about pollution. This is about warfare, the crappiest kind of warfare.
It’s an open secret that Mexico’s crumbling infrastructure has been dumping raw sewage into the Pacific for years, but that’s only half the story. The real kicker is how this toxic tide is playing directly into the hands of asymmetric power dynamics. You don’t need high-tech hypersonic missiles to degrade your opponent’s elite forces when you can just give them a steady diet of dysentery and flesh-eating bacteria.
Tijuana’s sewage problem is not just an environmental catastrophe; it’s a textbook case of unconventional warfare. Don’t believe me? Look up China’s Three Warfares strategy—media manipulation, psychological ops, and legal warfare. Now add a fourth: bio-hazardous neglect. A slow, grinding assault on operational readiness masquerading as bureaucratic incompetence.
SEALs in Coronado spent 75% of 2024 training in water deemed unsafe. They are, quite literally, wading into toxic waste. But they aren’t stopping. Why? Because war doesn’t wait for a perfect training environment, and neither does the Pentagon. But let’s also acknowledge the insanity: an entire working group is now being assembled to study whether or not drinking liquefied human waste during Hell Week might be detrimental to one’s health.
There’s a phrase SEAL instructors like to use: “Embrace the suck.” That’s the whole point of BUD/S. You get cold, wet, exhausted, and miserable until your body or mind breaks. But the new, unspoken addendum seems to be: “And hope the suck doesn’t give you cholera.”
The official response? Delayed protocols, logistical excuses, and the promise of a “working group.” Because what’s one more blue-ribbon panel when your troops are swallowing E. coli cocktails? The Navy has pledged that by the end of the year, they’ll have an official policy in place for when the water is laced with biological nightmares. Until then? Drink up, boys.
Of course, the Mexican government shrugs and claims they’re “working on it.” Meanwhile, the raw sludge keeps flowing, and the wealthier neighborhoods in San Diego keep paying for filtration systems while everyone else gets a lungful of sewage-scented sea breeze. The environmentalists rage, the politicians preen, and the SEALs keep paddling through a waterborne petri dish of gastrointestinal doom.
This isn’t just an ecological disaster—it’s an intelligence failure, a policy failure, and a national security risk rolled into one brown, festering wave. And make no mistake: every adversary with a strategic mind is watching. Forget cyber warfare for a second—who needs to hack the Pentagon when you can just let America poison itself?
So here we are, in a world where the most elite warriors of the most powerful military in human history are literally training in an enemy’s excrement. It’s not a metaphor anymore—it’s reality. And it stinks.
Thank you for expanding on the article and clarifying what apparently is going on.