Sewage Woes Rise With Flow From Tijuana

The city’s sewage woes worsened Friday when the massive spill from a ruptured underwater pipeline combined with an overflow of raw sewage from Tijuana to close 20 miles of beach from the international border north to the San Diego River.

Health officials said readings of fecal coliform bacteria, capable of inducing diseases ranging from gastrointestinal disorders to hepatitis and typhoid, were 400 times higher than the legal limit at the site of the spill and many times higher than that near the border.

While city officials have attempted to cope all week with a break in San Diego’s sewage outfall pipe that has spewed 180 million gallons a day of partially treated sewage, they were caught by surprise by the additional millions of gallons of raw sewage spilling into the sea from Tijuana.

Flood waters from a recent heavy storm sent the Mexican sewage down the Tijuana River. Officials estimated that 12 millions gallons a day of raw sewage from Tijuana is flowing into the Pacific, along with 100 million gallons a day of contaminated rain runoff.

Untreated sewage from the Tijuana River Valley has moved north and caused occasional San Diego beach closures for decades. The problem intensified in recent years as Tijuana’s growth outpaced the capacity of the city’s infrastructure.

A daily flow of up to 12 million gallons since 1987 has forced permanent closure of a 2 1/2-mile stretch of beach just north of the border. The effluent moves through the Tijuana River and adjacent gullies and arroyos because of a lack of adequate pipelines on the Mexican side.

In another development Friday, Gov. Pete Wilson arrived in San Diego and pledged a $2.5-million grant and a $2-million loan of state funds, combined with $5.5 million from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, to help pay for repairs of San Diego’s broken sewage pipe.

San Diego officials say it will take $10 million to repair breaks in the nine-foot-diameter outfall pipe that sent partially treated sewage gushing into the ocean 3,150 feet offshore, at a depth of 35 feet. About 4 1/2 miles of beach had been fouled before Friday.

The spill was detected by the Coast Guard on Sunday night near the rocky cliffs of the Point Loma Peninsula. Officials speculate that settlement of the ocean floor, combined with wave action during recent low tides, caused the reinforced-concrete pipe to tear apart.

Normally, the pipe carries treated sewage--from which 80% of the solid material has been removed--to a point 2.2 miles offshore and releases it at a depth of 220 feet. The system serves 1.7 million of the county’s residents.

Gary Stephany, director of environmental health services for San Diego County, said readings of fecal coliform bacteria had zoomed to more than 400 times the legal limit from the tip of Point Loma to beaches two miles north, and as of late Friday were far higher near the border.

Stephany said raw sewage had even been detected on the pristine beaches of Coronado and that the contamination from Mexico was clearly evident in the city of Imperial Beach near the border.

Stephany said signs are posted along 20 miles of the county’s beaches but added that enforcement measures are difficult even though “the water is clearly dangerous--it’s contaminated.”

“I can’t do anything about people who aren’t smart enough to understand that they will get sick,” Stephany said. “If surfers say: ‘Waves are more important to me than getting sick,’ well, there’s nothing I can do about that.

“We can’t put policemen out there to patrol the beaches, but the danger is there. It’s like saying: ‘Don’t eat mushrooms from a certain field because, if you do, you’re going to die.’ Some people go ahead and eat the mushrooms anyway.”

Nearly 10 years had passed since beaches were ordered closed because of sewage from Tijuana, officials said Friday.

The long-term solution lies in a $200-million sewage treatment plant slated for the border area. The plant is designed to handle up to 25 million gallons a day of effluent. President Bush’s budget unveiled this week promises $52 million for the project, spurring hopes that the plant can be complete by early 1995.

San Diego city officials have attempted to help treat sewage from Tijuana. County health official Dan Avera said the San Diego system began processing 12 million gallons of raw sewage from Tijuana in late August as part of a binational agreement.

“The system on the Mexican side of the border is designed to pick up sewage from the Tijuana River and divert it into our metro system, but with floods, the volume is such that we’re just not able to handle it,” Avera said.

Worsening Pollution

Thursday’s storm, which came up from the south, delivered a pair of environmental blows to the San Diego County coastline--forcing the closure of almost a third of the county’s beaches.

Sewage from spill: The storm spread the effluent from the San Diego sewage treatment plant northward, polluting beaches at Sunset Cliffs, Ocean Beach and up to the flood control channel. That sewage has been partly treated.

Raw Sewage: The winds blew raw sewage from the Tijuana River northward, forcing the closure of beaches in Coronado, Imperial Beach and at Silver Strand. Untreated sewage from Mexico usually affects only affects only a 2-mile stretch of the coast.