Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin made a welcome foray into what needs to be a top bilateral issue between the U.S. and Mexico -- the persistent raw sewage from Tijuana's factories and toilets being dumped onto San Diego's beaches, rendering many of them absolutely filthy no-go zones that stink to high heavens.
He tweeted this on X:
I was just briefed that Mexico is dumping large amounts of raw sewage into the Tijuana River, and it’s now seeping into the U.S.
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) March 9, 2025
This is unacceptable. Mexico MUST honor its commitments to control this pollution and sewage!
He may be late to this party (he is a New York guy, after all), but he's a most welcome guest.
Much of the problem, he's about to find, was Joe Biden's doing. Not only did he let the Mexicans do what they liked, he obstructed amelioration from the U.S. side.
During President Trump's first term, a pumping system was installed to keep the sewage away if Tijuana couldn't or wouldn't. Joe Biden shut it down because they were dubbed "Trump pumps" and the problem got worse. When election time was on, he turned the "Trump pumps" back on -- but the underlying problem from Mexico remains, ignored by the state, and a complete non-topic in Washington, even though San Diego now boasts the nation's filthiest beaches.
I wrote about that last September, when it was getting really gross:
Lately, really gross rotten-egg-smelling sulfur-based chemicals, and even hyper-toxic cyanide-based chemicals, which is used in weapons of war, is rolling in from Mexican factories, mixed in with the raw Mexican toilet sewage already coming in creating intolerable conditions on this side of the border. A few days ago, the Centers for Disease Control announced that it would be surveying residents for health effects of breathing the stench from raw sewage all day long.
Last month, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Navy SEALs were confirmed to have been sickened after swimming in that filth for military readiness training. Zeldin is going to learn all about that, too.
According to the U-T:
That's a bona fide health hazard to our elite and highly valued troops that need never have happened.
Who better than the EPA to get involved in this outrageous toxic situation? It makes one wonder why the other EPA administrators under the previous administration did absolutely nothing.
If Lee needs a briefing on this, he couldn't do better than to talk with local pols Amy Reichert and Jim Desmond, who know this situation cold.
It's also a matter for much of the other government as President Trump gets tough on Mexico in order to avoid 25% tariffs in exchange for trade fairness, border order, and for goodness sakes, not fouling one's neighbor's beaches with filth. It's actually the Other Border Issue, and we are lucky we have Lee Zeldin's eye on it -- he's going to be diving into a world of grossness to get to the bottom of this, but it may just be the only thing that fixes those beaches.
Image: Screen shot from X video