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GAO: Sewage From Mexico into USA Causes California Beaches Closures Every Year
The Government Accountability Office is an independent investigating arm of US Congress. Its reports are credible, highly valued and carry a lot of weight.
For decades, sand and water at the beaches in Imperial Beach an Coronado island are brown with human waste overflowed from Tijuana's broken sewage system, carrying E Coli, lots of other deadly pathogens, heavy toxic metals and poisons from dirty industries. CBP agents get sick patrolling along the Tijuana river and have filed law suits.
Unless you want to get infected with terminal diseases, tt's prudent to avoid the soil, air and water near the Tijuana river and Imperial beach.
[URL]https://cnsnews.com/article/national/bruce-truax/gao-sewage-flowing-mexico-us-causes-california-beach-close-every-year[/URL]
GAO: Sewage Flowing From Mexico into USA Causes California Beach to Close – Every Year.
By Bruce Truax.
March 11,2020.
2:30 pm EDT.
/[URL]CNSNews.com[/URL]/ -- Since 2003, sewage water flowing through the Tijuana River from Mexico into the United States has contaminated some public beach area in Imperial Beach in Southern California, forcing officials to close these areas for at least one quarter of the year and sometimes half the year, according to a report by the USA Government Accountability Office.
Currently, the southern portion of the beach in Imperial Beach is closed because of the sewage from Mexico, according to the San Diego County website and Art Ayala, lieutenant of the Safety Department of Imperial Beach.
"After a heavy rainfall. The mist off those breaking waves has caused us, myself included, to / have some / ill-effects," Ayala told CNS News by telephone. "Anything from headaches to sore throats to sinus issues and that's just from breathing. That air off the ocean. You can definitely smell sewage, rotten odors coming off the ocean."
Ayala added that the sewage turns the ocean "brown."
The GAO reported, "wastewater pipeline breaks in Mexico continue to send sewage across the border, and storm water from Mexico continues to carry trash from city streets, sediment, and bacteria into the United States. Stormwater runs off paved surfaces or other impervious areas into water bodies and may contain pollutants that the water picks up as it runs over such surfaces."
"In the Tijuana River Valley watershed, from 2003 through 2017, officials from the City of Imperial Beach, California, closed public beaches for at least one-quarter of the year and up to half the year in some years due to sewage contamination, according to data from the city," reported the GAO.
The report, International Boundary and Water Commission: Opportunities Exist to Address Water Quality Problems, released in February, says that poor infrastructure in Mexico has resulted in millions of gallons of untreated water coming into the United States across the border. This water contains sewage, heavy metals, and E. Coli. / P. 37.
During periods of intense rain, Mexican-operated treatment plants, sewer systems, and sewage pipelines overflow into the Tijuana River, which flows across the border from Mexico into the United States. Because of the higher elevation on the Mexican side, the water flows from the south to the north.
Mexico operates a pump station named CILA -- Commission International de Limites why Aguas -- which is along the Tijuana River. As the GAO explains, "According to a 2019 study, Tijuana has not built sufficient sewage infrastructure to serve the area's exponential population growth and urbanization. When problems arise with Tijuana's treatment facilities, the city diverts a portion of its wastewater for treatment at the South Bay Plant in California.
"In these instances, the Mexican utility may also shut down Pump Station CILA, a main pump located in the Tijuana River that diverts the river to the treatment plant. If the South Bay plant is not notified and does not shut down its pump and canyon collectors, it may receive additional flows."
Trash buildup is also a cause for sewage flows. In January 2020, a trash buildup on a sewer drain caused putrid water to back up into Tijuana River. Then in June 2019, 1.9 million gallons of wastewater were released into the Tijuana River because of trash buildup at one of the pumps along the Tijuana River that caused the pump to fail.
Storm water washes trash into the Tijuana River, and sewer systems near the Tijuana River. The USIBWC, USA Customs and Border Protection, and state park employees remove trash periodically from these areas. However, this action is not sufficient during intense rainfall.
The contaminated water flows into the Tijuana River, which flows across the border through the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge, where it empties into the Pacific Ocean a few miles north of the border, near the City of Imperial Beach, Calif.
You. S officials say Mexico does not have the means to properly and consistently maintain and operate their pipelines and pumps, according to the GAO. In 2019, 1.9 million gallons of wastewater flowed into the United States due to a sewage pipe spill. In February of 2017, a pipeline rupture near the Tijuana River sent 143 million gallons of sewage-contaminated water flowing into the you. S from Mexico, according to the report.
Sewage and toxic metals from Mexico have also flooded the streets of Nogales, Mexico, said the GAO.
As part of a 1944 treaty with Mexico, the United States agreed to treat some of the waste from Mexican sewer systems. For instance, an International Outfall Interceptor / IOI / pipeline connects Nogales, Mexico and Nogales, Arizona through a United States-operated waste treatment system.
Due to a poor sewer system, the streets of Nogales in Mexico flood during heavy rainfall. According to July 2018 Arizona Department of Environmental Quality / ADEQ / report, the citizens of Nogales, Mexico have lifted manhole covers to the sewer system to drain the streets. This overloads the sewer system and the sewage floods the you. S sewer system and then leaks into the streets of Nogales, Arizona.
In 2017, Santa Cruz County Health Services and the Arizona Department of Health issued notices of elevated levels of E. Coli due to untreated sewage leaking from the sewers.
It's not just sewage that's flowing into the United States. Metal-plating factories in Nogales, Mexico dump heavy metals directly into the sewer system, and this metal eventually makes its way into the you. S sewage system.
Wastewater is also flowing from the Nogales Arizona International Outfall Interceptor pipeline / IOI / into the Santa Cruz River in Arizona.
The IOI is eroded and broken in several areas and no government entity is willing to maintain it. Currently, there is a dispute over who is responsible for the maintenance of IOI.
The you. S Commission that manages wastewater along the Mexican border / USIBWC / claims that the city of Nogales is responsible for its maintenance. However, Nogales city managers claim they do not have that responsibility.
In 2005, the USIBWC proposed a $50 million plan to fix the IOI. However, the project has not started due to funding disagreements between Arizona, USIBWC and the city of Nogales.
In its recommendations, the GAO said Congress should authorize the USIBWC to "identify alternatives" to fix the water quality problems in the Tijuana River Valley watershed. In addition, the GAO said the USA Commissioner of the IBWC "should work with the Mexican Commissioner to formalize a binational rapid response team to address sewage infrastructure failures along the USA -Mexico border, including the Nogales and South Bay wastewater treatment plants."
The commissioner should also direct "USIBWC staff to conduct long-term capital planning for the Santa Cruz River Basin and Tijuana River Valley watersheds."
To read the GAO report, click here.
The CNSNews Team.
Head in the Sand. Cleaness. Save lives. More fun
So true, USA Congress pass legislation but the funds is not available cleaning the river. A shell politics. Mexico has no funding but depend on USA.
NGO are in charge.
[QUOTE=CaptainSolo;2434507]The Government Accountability Office is an independent investigating arm of US Congress. Its reports are credible, highly valued and carry a lot of weight.
For decades, sand and water at the beaches in Imperial Beach an Coronado island are brown with human waste overflowed from Tijuana's broken sewage system, carrying E Coli, lots of other deadly pathogens, heavy toxic metals and poisons from dirty industries. CBP agents get sick patrolling along the Tijuana river and have filed law suits.
Unless you want to get infected with terminal diseases, tt's prudent to avoid the soil, air and water near the Tijuana river and Imperial beach.[/QUOTE]
Head in the Sand. Cleaness. Save lives. More fun
Effluents from the Tijuana river flows South towards Playa, Popotla, Puerto Nuevo. I would avoid all those beaches too.
My neighbors went on a cruise to Ensenada and swam on a beach. The whole group was infected with Hepatitis A; those who stayed on the ship did not. They were scared shitless of Mexico.
Mexico beaches, Cancun, Acapulco, Puerta Vallarta ect are all inundated with raw sewage for decades. Rio de Janeiro's bay is gray and loaded with raw sewage, smelling like a toilet even from the top of Sugar Loaf. However, I found no pollution around the bay and beaches in BS As and Uruguay. The Rio de la Plata carries clean, yellow water loaded with sediments to the sea.
It's stupid to let Tijuana's sewage flow into Imperial Beach. Trump should tax Mexico to build a new water treatment plant in Tijuana and pump back all waste water back to them.
Oyster Farm. Rosarito to Ensanada. Solution in place. Adequate?
Oyster the food for pussy suckers, a must. Taste good raw or with lime juice. Tijuana and Ensenada oysters are the best in Mexico, IMHO. Good. Size and fresh.
[QUOTE=CaptainSolo;2434916]Effluents from the Tijuana river flows South towards Playa, Popotla, Puerto Nuevo. I would avoid all those beaches too.
My neighbors went on a cruise to Ensenada and swam on a beach. The whole group was infected with Hepatitis A; those who stayed on the ship did not. They were scared shitless of Mexico.
Mexico beaches, Cancun, Acapulco, Puerta Vallarta ect are all inundated with raw sewage for decades. Rio de Janeiro's bay is gray and loaded with raw sewage, smelling like a toilet even from the top of Sugar Loaf. However, I found no pollution around the bay and beaches in BS As and Uruguay. The Rio de la Plata carries clean, yellow water loaded with sediments to the sea.
It's stupid to let Tijuana's sewage flow into Imperial Beach. Trump should tax Mexico to build a new water treatment plant in Tijuana and pump back all waste water back to them.[/QUOTE]
Behind T. J's black market for cars
A lot of cars are stolen in California and sold in the gray market to avoid Mexico's high import taxes of used vehicles. Domestic manufacturers like VW lobbied government for these high import taxes to kill off used cars import competition.
I have seen a guy swapping plates of a dozen cars in the parking lot behind JIB, suspected stolen and being prepped to be driven into Tijuana. I called 911 and reported. SDPD said they would send a patrol unit over, but nothing happened. Personally I had a car stolen on the street near the UETA store. It's safer to park in a lot with tags.
This is why Tijuana's policias frequently stop and check registrations of cars with California plates for illegally-imported cars. I saw a few cars with expired CA registrations, assumed stolen or gray-market, got towed on Coahuila.
[URL]https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2020/mar/04/city-lights-behind-tjs-black-market-cars/[/URL]#.
Behind T. J's black market for cars.
By Mike Madriaga, March 4, 2020.
When Lando Martinez returned to his south San Diego home on January 20, his 1995 Honda Del Sol was missing. "I parked the car in front of our new house on the 16th," he said, "and we flew out to Texas to visit family. When we came back the following Monday, I thought my wife moved it into our garage, but she didn't. It was long gone. "
"When was it stolen?" I asked him on February 4.
"The night of the 16th or morning of the 17th," he responded.
Lando Martinez shows the anguish he feels over his car being stolen.
Lando Martinez shows the anguish he feels over his car being stolen.
While the 49-year-old Navy veteran and his wife were gone those five days, according to the [URL]Crimemapping.com[/URL] database, about a dozen other cars were stolen within a three-mile radius of their south San Diego home near the intersection of the 905 and 5 freeways.
"I feel sorry for my husband," Martinez's wife responded underneath a photo she posted of the white, two-seater plastered with bumper stickers; the car has a dent by the driver's side door; and sports black vanity plates that read 'HOCUS 1. ' "It was part of his identity to his band. The odds may be against us, but hanging on to hope that it will be located. "
Martinez is the lead guitarist and a singer for Hocus — an Imperial Beach rock band that sort of sounds like The Ramones, Nirvana, and Black Sabbath.
"Luckily, my instruments weren't in the car," he continued, "I asked around our neighborhood and everybody was stumped, saying, 'We've never had this type of stuff happen in our neighborhood. '.
Martinez filed a police report the same day they discovered the car was stolen. On January 22, his buddies suggested that the "HOCUS mobile" might be south of the border; their house is about four miles north of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
"I just got back from San Ysidro / Port of Entry / he said on a Facebook update, "they only read plates coming back into America. Not going into Mexico. Getting a car stolen sucks. ".
Then on the 27th, Martinez got a call from the "Esurance insurance company. They said: 'Hey, we found your car in Ensenada, Mexico, Martinez recounted, "and I was like, 'Wow, how did you guys do that?' She said, 'We have agents worldwide. '
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Europe's Coronavirus epidemic surpasses China in confirmed infection and deaths.
Europe, with her civilized and robust healthcare infrastructure, now has about 82,000 confirmed infected with 3,400 dead, about 5% mortality, with only a very small percentage of the population actually tested.
Think of hundred thousands working people in Tijuana crammed into crowded markets, small vans and crowded buses everyday, the infection and dead rates in Tijuana would be a lot more severe. Even if the city orders shut downs and self isolation now, it may already be too late with known infections, latent infections and ease of transmission in a crowded city.
Just hope this disaster will not be too dire for our friends in Tijuana.
Locked-Down Europe Faces Closed Borders, Economic Wounds and Dire Warnings.
The continent hit a bleak milestone in the coronavirus epidemic, surpassing China in cases and deaths. A leader who knows something about confinement pleaded for citizens to accept it, for now.
Image: The Austrian-German border this week. Credit. Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times.
By Benjamin Novak, Melissa Eddy, Katrin Bennhold and Richard Pérez-Peña.
Published March 18,2020 Updated March 19,2020, 5:47 am ET.
Drivers faced daylong waits to cross European borders that nations raced to close on Wednesday, years after proudly throwing them open. Britain closed schools to millions of children amid talk of shutting down London. And Germany's stoic leader made an unusually personal appeal for unity and purpose in the face of crisis.
Across an increasingly locked-down Europe, people and their governments struggled to adjust to the grim, immobilized life wrought by the new coronavirus epidemic, their every adjustment seemingly a step behind the worsening reality.
The continent passed a bleak milestone that few envisioned last month, when the virus was ravaging China but had barely touched the West: As of Wednesday, by official government counts, it had infected and killed more people in Europe — more than 82,000 cases and more than 3,400 dead — than in China.
And as China slows the rate of new infections to almost zero, in Europe, now at the heart of the global outbreak, the virus is spreading faster than ever. Less than two months after the European Union sent relief supplies to China, the bloc announced that it was receiving badly needed masks and virus testing kits from China.
A day after she and other European Union leaders agreed to close the bloc off to almost all travelers, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany made a televised address on Wednesday, posing a stark choice to her nation: Abide by newly imposed restrictions on individual movement and contact with others to avoid spreading the virus, or watch the epidemic overwhelm the health care system.
"This is serious," Ms. Merkel said. "Take it seriously. Since German reunification — no, since World War II — our country has never faced a challenge where we depended so much on our collective actions and solidarity."
ImageWatching from a living room in Oberhausen, Germany, on Wednesday as Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered her first direct televised address to the nation in over 14 years in power.
Watching from a living room in Oberhausen, Germany, on Wednesday as Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered her first direct televised address to the nation in over 14 years in power. Credit. Fabian Strauch / DPA, via Associated Press.
The chancellor drew a striking parallel to her personal history. She lived more than half her life in the former East Germany, behind a wall, her movements constrained by the state.
"Let me assure you: For someone like me, for whom the freedom to travel and move was a hard-fought right, such restrictions can only be justified if they are an absolute necessity," she said. "They should never be passed lightly and only ever temporarily — but they are indispensable at the moment to save lives. ".
Reports of new cases and deaths in Europe accelerated on Wednesday. Among the countries with the biggest outbreaks, nearly all reported more new cases than they had in any single day before.
Italy, the hardest-hit country, confirmed more than 35,000 infections and almost 3,000 deaths. Spain had almost 14,000 people infected and more than 600 dead. France reported more than 9,000 cases, 264 of them fatal.
On a continent where people and commerce have crossed borders with little or no friction for a generation, the resurrection of border controls left drivers angry, goods stranded and traffic backed up for miles. Some supermarkets warned that they might not be able to keep shelves stocked.
Not only did the European Union authorize new controls on the bloc's outer frontiers, but the free trade and free travel zone within Europe has broken down, with a dozen participating countries restoring old barriers.
The pledge that the movement of goods would not be interrupted appeared to be failing badly on Wednesday, especially in Hungary, the landlocked nation that has suddenly become a bottleneck in Europe. Prime Minister Viktor Orban carried out his promise on Monday to close the borders to all foreign citizens — leaving travelers stranded and fuming.
After many international airlines cut flights and the United States banned travel from most of Europe, plans were thrown into disarray and airports became scenes of panic and confusion.
A similar scene has been playing out for days on European roads.
Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbians and Ukrainians on either side of the main Austrian-Hungarian crossing have left their cars and sat in the road, preventing vehicles from passing in either direction in an effort to pressure the authorities to open the border.
Janos Fenyvesi, 68, a truck driver from Hungary, had been sitting in traffic on the Austrian side of the border since Tuesday afternoon. "We haven't moved a single meter since 8 am," he said Wednesday.
Image: An empty street in Vienna this weekend. "E. You. Citizens have to be allowed to return to their countries," the Austrian interior minister said Wednesday. Credit. Susanne Hassler-Smith / EPA, via Shutterstock.
Mr. Fenyvesi was pulling freight from Switzerland to Nyiregyhaza, in eastern Hungary, when his trip was brought to an abrupt stop about 16 miles from the Austrian-Hungarian border. Now, he said, a trip that would normally have taken him two to three days may take twice as long.
"I don't understand why the Austrian police haven't removed these people from the freeway," he said.
In Austria, the police said that traffic had backed up more than 20 miles toward Vienna, hindering movement within the country. Slovakia, Hungary's neighbor to the north, also reported traffic backups stretching for miles, a critical concern for a country that imports more than half of its food.
Slovaks working in Hungary were left with no sense of when they would be able to cross back home because of backups at the Hungary-Slovakia border.
And truckers trying to transport goods between Poland, which has imposed new border controls, and Germany were warned that they faced waits of four to 30 hours.
Britain has lagged behind its European counterparts both in restricting movement and in making the limits mandatory. But on Wednesday the government followed their lead and ordered schools to close, except for the children of essential workers, presenting a new challenge to millions of parents already struggling to hold onto their jobs.
There was also growing speculation about a strict lockdown in London, where the infection rate is relatively high, though government officials said they did not expect a decision until Friday at the earliest.
"We will take the right steps at the right time, guided by the science," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a news conference. "We will not hesitate to go further and faster. ".
He observed at least one other new precaution: His weekly audience with Queen Elizabeth II, normally conducted in person, was held over the phone.
As governments try to institute "social distancing" to avoid spreading the contagion, the combination of scary news coverage, stern advice, restrictions on personal movement and mandatory closings of businesses and gathering spots has already caused much economic activity to screech to a halt.
On Wednesday, Belgium joined Italy, France, Spain, Germany and others in ordering people to stay at home as much as possible. Belgians may go outside to walk, bike or exercise, but they must do it alone or with people who live in the same home, and stay away from others.
In France, the government proposed legislation allowing it to declare emergencies and govern by decree to some extent, including further restricting people's movements and requisitioning goods and services from the private sector. Extending the emergency beyond 12 days would require the assent of Parliament.
The police in Paris said that in a raid on a store, they had seized more than 15,000 masks needed by health workers that were headed for the black market, and more than 200 bottles of fake anti-bacterial gel.
Grocers in France have been allowed to remain open, but Olivier Véran, the health minister, said the authorities would shut down open-air markets where people were not complying with distancing guidelines.
"Wherever it is impossible to enforce the distance of one meter between two people, we must intervene," he said.
Europe's disparate reactions echoed those of the migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016, when Ms. Merkel stood out for her welcoming attitude toward people fleeing war and deprivation.
Some populist leaders, notably Mr. Orban, portrayed Middle Eastern and African asylum seekers as a threat to European, Christian civilization, and tried to shut them out. Now they are linking the coronavirus to migration, and citing it as a reason to erect barriers.
Image: Traffic at the border between Hungary and Austria stretched for miles Wednesday. Credit. Leonhard Foeger / Reuters.
Ms. Merkel seemed determined on Wednesday to appeal to empathy, civic spirit and reason, promising to communicate often and in detail about any further measures. She urged Germans not to believe "rumors, just official announcements. ".
"We are a democracy," Ms. Merkel said. "We don't live by coercion but by shared knowledge and cooperation. This is a historic task, and we can only manage it together. "
The chancellor also warned against being overly sanguine.
"These aren't abstract numbers in a statistic," Ms. Merkel said. "They are a father or a grandfather, a mother or a grandmother, a partner. It's people. And we are a community in which every life and every person counts. "
Benjamin Novak reported from Budapest, Melissa Eddy and Katrin Bennhold from Berlin, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by Aurelien Breeden from Paris; Stephen Castle from London; Joanna Berendt from Warsaw; Miroslava Germanova from Bratislava, Slovakia; Steven Erlanger and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels; and Raphael Minder from Madrid.
Melissa Eddy is a correspondent based in Berlin who covers German politics, social issues and culture. She came to Germany as a Fulbright scholar in 1996, and previously worked for The Associated Press in Frankfurt, Vienna and the Balkans. At meddynyt • Facebook.
Katrin Bennhold is The New York Times's Berlin bureau chief. Previously she reported from London and Paris, covering a range of topics from the rise of populism to gender. At kbennhold • Facebook.
Richard Pérez-Peña, the International News Editor in London, has been with The Times since 1992. His beats have included higher education, the newspaper and magazine industry, health care, government and politics, transportation and courts. At perezpena • Facebook.
A version of this article appears in print on March 19,2020, Section A, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Closed Borders Within Europe Unleash Congestion and Chaos on Roads.
