U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin returned to San Diego, California, on Thursday, where he met with residents, small business owners, and local officials to discuss the Trump Administration’s continued efforts to implement the permanent and urgent 100% solution to the decades long Tijuana River Sewage Crisis.
Large amounts of untreated raw sewage have flowed into Southern California from Mexico for decades, resulting in years-long beach closures, foul odors, environmental degradation, and lost economic opportunity. It's also sickening people on both sides of the border, and the crisis has even harmed our Navy SEALs who train in the area.
“The Trump Administration promised to treat this crisis with the urgency it deserves, and that’s what we are doing. This has been a top priority for President Trump and I since my first visit to the San Diego area last April. We have been working at incredible speed to deliver relief to the millions of Americans who’ve been living through this nightmare,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. “We’ve made incredible progress in accelerating infrastructure buildouts and getting Mexico to step up to the plate, but we know the work isn’t done. The Trump Administration will not rest until the raw sewage flow from Mexico is stopped for good.”
Administrator Zeldin committed to solving the decades-long crisis during his April 2025 visit to San Diego. Moving at Trump Speed, the Trump Administration negotiated and signed a historic new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Mexico in July 2025, approximately 90 days later, committing both sides to speed up project timelines and take additional actions to urgently and permanently solve this crisis once and for all.
The 100% solution laid out in the MOU is built upon three pillars:
- Mexico will obligate the remaining $93 million of Minute 328 funds that they hadn’t yet obligated.
- The timeline for completion of the remaining Minute 328 projects have been reduced.
- Several necessary Mexico side projects have been added to account for future population growth in Tijuana and operation and maintenance costs.
The Trump Administration also completed the expansion of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (SBIWTP) in August 2025. SBIWTP can now remove an additional 10 million gallons per day of raw sewage fromthe Tijuana River. This project was expected to take two years, but the Trump Administration expedited the timeline to just 100 days.
Additionally, Mexico has made key progress in recent months to meet their obligations of the MOU to fund and begin construction on several key projects:
- Repairing and replacing the Tijuana River Gates to prevent millions of gallons of sewage from entering the Tijuana River.
- Diverting 10 million gallons per day of treated effluent from two Mexico-side wastewater treatment plants, so it doesn’t enter the Tijuana River.
- Rehabilitating the Parallel Gravity Line that takes sewage flows from central Tijuana to a treatment plant on the coast.
Less than five months after the MOU’s signing, the Trump Administration signed another agreement built around the third pillar of the 100% solution to account for future population growth in Tijuana and the broader region. This new agreement, called Minute 333, was agreed to in record time and obligates no new American taxpayer funding. The Minute includes a slew of new actions and projects to ensure the Tijuana River sewage crisis doesn’t reoccur for decades to come.
Some of the top agreed upon actions in Minute 333 include:
- The creation of an operations and maintenance (O&M) account at the North America Development Bank (NADBank), which would set aside a portion of any future dollars provided to Mexico to be held for future O&M costs, with recommendations due within 12 months of signing.
- Mexico will develop a Tijuana water infrastructure master plan within 6 months.
- A Minute 333 binational working group will be created within three months to assess the feasibility of constructing an ocean outfall for the San Antonio de los Buenos Wastewater Treatment Plant (SABWWTP), along with assessing the technical and financial feasibility of expanding SABWWTP from 18.26 million gallons per day (MGD) to 43.37 MGD.
- Mexico will construct a sediment basin in Matadero Canyon (Smuggler’s Gulch), which is located near the international boundary, prior to the 2026-2027 rainy season.
- Mexico will construct the Tecolote-La Gloria Wastewater Treatment Plant with a capacity of 3 MGD by December 2028.
To learn more about other agreed upon items, see the full text of Minute 333 here.
