Dead Body In Tijuana Pump Station Causes 14.5 Million Gallon Spillage Incident Reaching San Diego

A dead body found in a pump station in Mexico this past Sunday caused a backup of 14.5 million gallons of raw sewage that flowed into San Diego.

According to the International Boundary Water Commission, the cleanup crew at a pump station found the body in a sewage intake system. The body then caused refuse buildup and plugged the structure, resulting in overflow into the United States.

The millions of gallons of both treated and untreated waste flowed from Tijuana into the river valley in San Diego from Saturday night to the following evening.

Mexican authorities gave a statement saying it is not yet clear how the corpse ended up where it was found. The police restricted public access to the area as the investigation continued.

The Mexican water officials cleared the scene earlier on during the week after constructing a temporary raised bank to assist in stopping the overflow of the sewage.

Interestingly, it is not a new phenomenon for San Diego.
According to Fox News, last year, a pipe across the border in Mexico broke, and it caused millions of gallons of sewage to go into the Tijuana River, though this time, the waste ended up in the Pacific Ocean. The spillage caused adverse effects to the California coastal areas.

The incident happened in December 2018, and reports claimed six to seven gallons of sewage was spilling into the United States every day.

In another more recent incident, 116 gallons spilled from Mexico into the Tijuana River over ten days last month. The pollution warranted the temporary closure of a few San Diego beaches.

The situation was so dire; the San Diego Council members approved a state of emergency resolution connected to the sewage from the Tijuana River Valley.

The District Eight Councilmember, Vivian Moreno, whose jurisdiction includes the river valley, authored the resolution. She released a statement saying the pollution of the valley and the beaches had gone on for too long, adding that South Bay is not a dumping ground.

She, however, maintained that it was a regional issue and needed to be solved by both the American and Mexican governments instead of engaging in finger-pointing. The local population shares different opinions on the subject, but most believe this is a Mexican problem.

Clearly, this has been an issue over the previous years as news outlets claimed that sewage flowing into the Tijuana River from Mexico had been the cause for the closure of beaches for up to 300 days a year.