The Trump administration has signed a new binational agreement with Mexico, advancing efforts to solve a decades-long sewage crisis plaguing residents both north and south of the transnational Tijuana River.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Dec. 15 that the United States and Mexico have signed a “historic new agreement” called Minute 333. The binational agreement saw both nations agree to additional actions that the EPA said will “progress to permanently and urgently end the decades-long Tijuana River sewage crisis.”
The majority of the 120-mile Tijuana River lies south of the U.S.–Mexico border in the Mexican state of Baja California. Only the last five miles are on the U.S. side of the border, flowing to San Diego and emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The San Diego City Council first declared a state of emergency because of the pollution—ranging from raw sewage to industrial runoff—in 1993….