SAN DIEGO — Millions of gallons of sewage continue spilling into the Tijuana River after a sewer line break nearly two weeks ago.
On Thursday, the binational effort to stop raw sewage spill continued with commissioners with the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), going down to inspect repairs happening in Mexico.
The two sewer lines failed in late July. The initial repair work is expected to be completed by the end of the week so that one of the damaged pipelines can be brought back online.
Once the pipeline is fully restored to service and pump stations are re-activated, transboundary wastewater flow to the Tijuana River will end.
"We appreciate the quick response by Mexican officials to repair the damaged infrastructure," said Dr. Maria-Elena Giner, United States Commissioner.
Baron Partlow from Imperial Beach says he’s outraged over the most recent sewer line breaks in Tijuana that’s making it’s way into the pacific ocean.
"We have no idea how it can just keep getting worse and worse and worse as time goes on. We watched failure after failure after failure," said Partlow.
Commissioners say it’s about a 6 week timeline to repair the second line.
In the meantime, the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant has been working twice as hard, treating a daily average of 31.5 million gallons per day – exceeding the plant’s capacity of 25 million gallons per day.
The sewage collected in the flood control channel has been entering the ocean and even forced the closure of Imperial and Coronado beaches, which has south bay residents upset.
“Environmentally, it's killed all the sea life on our pier, there's no more starfish. You walk the jetties there's no more small tide pools where the water deposits, no red crabs in and enemies up inside the rocks. It's all gone. It's just murdering it. How can it not be into the human end of the food chain by now? We're getting exposed to poison we're getting murdered," added Partlow.
"We realize the safety and health impacts to the public and that’s why we’re here doing what we can. It is a Mexican utility, it is their project, but we’re here to facilitate and push and do what we can on our end," said Isela Canava, acting principal engineer of operations with the U.S. side of the IBWC.
Commissioners are set to announce more long-term solutions in the upcoming week.
WATCH RELATED: Massive sewage spill from Tijuana pushed to San Diego by south swell (August 2022)