Federal officials, including the head of the EPA, are in San Diego Thursday to discuss the Trump administration’s response to the years-long Tijuana River sewage crisis.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler addressed the news media at 2:15 p.m. to talk about the situation, which has been ongoing for decades.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin took his much-anticipated tour of the sewage crisis along our border. And, San Diego is being called one of the safest big cities in America for the third year in a row. Plus, two maned wolves — Cora and Rio — are now living at the San Diego Zoo.
The pair is also expected to meet with local business owners while touring the region.
In recent years, the U.S.-Mexico border sewage pollution problem has closed beaches and caused serious health issues for some residents. Untreated wastewater from Mexico’s Tijuana River crosses the border into the United States and washes out to sea just south of Imperial Beach.
The bacterial buildup from raw sewage in the wastewater has necessitated the closure of South Bay beaches almost without interruption for three years.
Zeldin was in San Diego last April to get an up-close look at the persistent sewage issues plaguing the U.S.-Mexico border, saying the issue needs to be resolved with “extreme urgency.”
Among those meeting with Zeldin at the time were San Diego County supervisors Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond; Reps. Darrell Issa and Mike Levin; Coronado mayor John Duncan; Chula Vista mayor John McCann; and El Cajon mayor Bill Wells.
We’re all familiar with the yellow signs that kept beaches from the border to Coronado closed for weeks – even months at a time this year. NBC 7 reporter Joe Little took a deep dive into the sewage crisis at our border.