Coronado’s northern beaches are open again after the city’s entire shoreline closed over Memorial Day weekend as wastewater from the ongoing Tijuana sewage crisis pushed bacteria into coastal waters.
The reopenings came as Mexico completed work on its two-phase International Collector project.
The city’s southern beaches – the Silver Strand Shoreline and Coronado Beach at Avenida Lunar – closed May 23, with the northernmost stretch of Coronado Beach closing on May 24. The Silver Strand shoreline closed on May 18.
The Silver Strand Shoreline is still closed as of publication time on May 31, but the other two stretches of coast have reopened.
Mexico completed the second and final phase of its International Collector project on May 21. During the two phases of the construction, excess sewage was pushed into the Tijuana River, causing beach closures in Coronado in April and in May.
However, Mexico used temporary bypasses to prevent about 75 million gallons of untreated sewage from entering the river during phase two, the US International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) said.
The International Collector is a pipeline that carries raw sewage from Tijuana to treatment plants, and it was aging and prone to leaks. Mexico has now relined the pipeline.
The US is currently repairing and expanding its South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (SBIWTP) to address the decades-long problem of excess Tijuana sewage flowing into the ocean, causing beach closures, health concerns, and a lingering smell in the South Bay.
The Environmental Protection Agency on May 19 announced it would accelerate the plant’s expansion, and said that within 100 days, its capacity would increase from 25 million gallons per day (MGD) of sewage to 35. That expansion was originally expected to take two years from the project’s launch last fall.
Based on that timeline, the SBIWTP will have an expanded capacity by Aug. 27. Ultimately, the plant’s capacity will be expanded even more, to 50 MGD with a 75 MGD peak flow capacity.
The IBWC expects that the full expansion will also be accelerated from its original, five-year timeframe, but has not yet announced new projections.
