San Diego

For years, untreated sewage has flowed from Tijuana’s northern fringe into farm land, pasture and wetlands in southern San Diego County.

On Friday, officials broke ground for a long-awaited project that is expected to reduce the problem substantially.

The $350,000 sewage project, funded with federal and state monies, is designed to capture so-called “renegade” flows from Tijuana that end up in the area known as Smuggler’s Gulch, west of the port of entry at San Ysidro. Each day, some 500,000 gallons of raw sewage flow from Tijuana into San Diego at the gulch, according to U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Coronado, who was present at the ground breaking.

The new system is designed to capture the raw sewage at the gulch and route it back to Tijuana’s treatment system. In 1985, a project was built to collect other Tijuana sewage flows that end up in the nearby border areas known as Stewart’s Drain, Silva Drain and Canyon Del Sol.

The system at Smuggler’s Gulch is expected to be operational by Jan. 1, officials said. The system includes a pumping plant, a pressure line and a collection sump. The system will be operated by the International Boundary and Water Commission, an independent body composed of members from both the United States and Mexico. Both nations cooperated in the project.

It is hoped that the new system will help preserve the wetlands at the mouth of the Tijuana River and reduce pollution levels in area farm land and in the ocean at Border Field State Park, where terse signs still advise waders not to enter the polluted surf.