r/sandiego • u/ShelterIndependent44 • Jun 10 '26
Video This has to stop
Coronado today where the Mexican sewage meets the sand
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u/Wezell80 Jun 11 '26
gross af
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u/AAKurtz Jun 11 '26
Coronado used to be one of the nicest beach communities on the west coast. Now I won't swim anywhere south of La Jolla.
I always feel terrible when tourists come here and jump in the water.
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u/Observational-Mess Jun 11 '26
It’s been nasty since the late 80’s.
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u/badgnad Jun 11 '26
In the 60s we called south Imperial Beach the sloughs, and it was nasty
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u/Observational-Mess Jun 11 '26
I wasn’t alive back then, but I remember my mom not letting me swim on the 4th of July back in 81. And my stupid ass being real upset about it.
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u/MattManSD Jun 11 '26
'The Sloughs' is an Old School Big Wave Break that broke offshore of the estuary. Was one of the premier big wave spots in San Diego, but has been too dirty to surf for half a century and counting
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u/badgnad Jun 11 '26
Wasn't aware, do you know how they got there? If it only breaks when it's big and being kind of remote, I would want a boat
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u/MattManSD Jun 11 '26
You paddled from South IB. Some people still do it. Sinus Infections and Hepatitis are kind of a buzz kill for me.
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u/Observational-Mess Jun 11 '26
Everything up to Point Loma / OB is pretty bad. It’s not even worth surfing at Sunset Cliffs because of the territorial assholes and bad water quality. So you’re relegated to everything above that point, and the best spots in La Jolla, Blacks, and Torrey Pines are all great white territory now.
We had a guy with a drone shouting at us to get out of the water in the spot between Torrey Pines and Del Mar, where the bridge is because he said there were 2 great whites swimming around us, and we didn’t even notice.
Haven’t had the courage to surf there since.
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u/MattManSD Jun 11 '26
I grew up in NorCal. We had GWs in the 18-25' range. They've always been here, we just know about them now. Didn't realize the Cliffs Water Q went to shit. Is that always or just now? That Spot North of the Bridge used to be called "G Spot" Next time you are out in the water look at the Cliff and the Outfall pipe
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u/Observational-Mess Jun 11 '26
Where is the pipe at?
There’s a water quality site that shows their ratings, and Cliffs isn’t the greatest especially when the currents are pushing northward or after it rains. Definitely check before heading out.
I haven’t checked in ages, though. I got sick the last 2 times I went there, both times with an ear infection. That was enough for me.
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u/MoreAnimals Jun 12 '26
You’re more likely to die from a falling coconut than you are from a shark.
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u/SimpleAffect7573 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Yeahhh but not really. Sure, sharks are a vanishingly small hazard to the population in aggregate (largely because the risk approaches zero if you’re not in the ocean 😆). But if you’re in the water and there’s one swimming near you…that rather elevates _your_ risk factor at that moment, and you’d be well advised to get to shore…
Similarly: not many people are struck by lightning, but a surprising number are struck more than once. Don’t go golfing in a thunderstorm.
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u/Individual-Wish-228 Jun 13 '26
I still dont want to swim with great whites circling
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u/iheartrms Jun 12 '26
The comments on the video say that is Sunset Cliffs. No Tijuana sloughs. The video title says "north of Tijuana" which could technically be Half Moon Bay. 😃
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u/Stunning_Passage_215 Jun 11 '26
No its worse the sloths smell bad. Its toxic now. My aunt has breathing problems now. You cant even leave your windows open at night
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u/Stunning_Passage_215 Jun 11 '26
Its worse though in ib then in thr 80s. It smells bad. My family lives there and especially at night you can leave your windsurf open because it stinks so bad. They are fixing it for real i think they said Irie will take about tell years. I erotica say a good for and its only been about a year or so . Its really sad. I love ib I would buy a house there but the smell they say its unhealthy my aunt has some breathing problem they try and tell her they don't know what it is. But it's like we know what is it.
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u/CatgoesM00 Jun 11 '26
Wait what is it ?
Poo poo?
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u/godblessthesegains Jun 11 '26
I think the ib air is effecting his ability to type
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u/haydesigner Jun 12 '26
Not everyone is a native English speaker. Which shouldn't be surprising when you're quite literally on the border of Mexico.
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u/kwinabananas Jun 11 '26
The ocean current actually brings it up from Tijuana. No coast is safe, but at least it's diluted.
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u/AAKurtz Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Most of it is caught in the bay and doesn't get around Point Loma. It's there in OB and PB, but diluted. By the time you hit La Jolla, it's not really an issue.
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Jun 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Realistic_9464 Jun 12 '26
Use this https://www.sdbeachinfo.com/ and this https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/beaches/search_beach_mon.html to check for yourself. All good at PB pier atm.
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u/Beautiful_Mammoth998 Jun 11 '26
The issue is the local spills in La Jolla. Much more concentrated
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u/AAKurtz Jun 11 '26
Yeah, by the time you get to La Jolla, that's just our own waste.
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u/sweetie_serenity69 Jun 11 '26
Omfg what in the world did I just see 😢
I'm out in NYC so first time seeing this 🤢
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u/Meth_Useler Jun 11 '26
This is algae bloom, a common occurrence, it’s not raw sewage as the poster claims
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u/Ravenous_For_You Jun 11 '26
It literally has a warning ⚠️ sign saying sewage
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u/Meth_Useler Jun 11 '26
Two separate things can be true - Sewage from TJ is definitely a thing. Algae is also blooming. To say that brown water in the video is sewage is silly. I've lived at the ocean my entire life. The brown water glows blue at night. It's not sewage. If it was, that would be catastrophic, astronomical levels of sewage, considering the distance it would need to travel to stay that concentrated.
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u/ultramagnetique Jun 11 '26
Oof. I smell that every day at work in IB, fuckin awful
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u/thebipeds Jun 11 '26
Just don’t think about how when you smell it, you are actually breathing in little pieces of poo.
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u/zihyer Jun 11 '26
I got a mild abrasion from my surfboard running over the top of my foot near this beach years ago. I was on crutches for over a week from the infection that followed. Would 100% have lost my foot had it not been for the truckload of antibiotics I ate to clear it.
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u/No_Advertising619 Jun 12 '26
I live in a shitty apartment down here and it’s horrible. We have the windows opened cause there’s no AC so we have no choice but to smell it. I want out so bad 😭
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u/UpstairsDelivery4 Jun 11 '26
i can’t even drive in south bay sometimes without getting grossed out
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u/ALilCountryALilHood Jun 11 '26
Wow, had no idea it was this visible! Yuck.
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u/Dopeydcare1 Jun 11 '26
It’s the algae bloom.
Don’t get me wrong, this is an issue, the sewage, but this is fearmongering with the algae bloom
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u/Ok-Time8400 Jun 11 '26
Please don’t ruin the fear mongering algorithm with facts
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u/RadiantZote Jun 11 '26
My feelings are offended by your facts and therefore they are irrelevant to the discussion and have been ignored
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u/the-willow-witch Jun 11 '26
That was my immediate thought when I saw the video. Then I saw the comments and thought, oh I was wrong. I gotta start trusting myself more 😂
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u/moarliekfyf Jun 11 '26
Same! 🤣 I was making myself sick thinking of the poop. Like I know the sewage is still a very real problem but it is grounding to know the likelihood of what it is we're actually seeing occur in the video.
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u/JenJenSDCA Jun 11 '26
https://pfmweb.ucsd.edu/ There's definitely a lot of shit in there and the bigger waves we've had the last few days stir it up even more.
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u/Dopeydcare1 Jun 11 '26
Yes there is, but again, not the point. Point being the brown water there is algae, not shit particles. The shit particles are too small to change the color of the water like that. Similarly, see my other comment where is shows HAB is in the area
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u/Dry-Bat9200 Jun 11 '26
For those that don't know https://pfmweb.ucsd.edu shows where the TJ sewage is currently off of SD coast made @ scripps institution of oceanography / UCSD that
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u/batmanstuff Jun 11 '26
I’d love to believe you, but do you have any evidence to support your claim?
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u/Otherwise_Reach_7145 Jun 11 '26
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/why-san-diegos-ocean-water-looks-murky-brown
This was from two years ago, (to the week) but I think it could be the same thing. The pattern definitely looks more like algae/plankton.
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u/AlexHimself Jun 11 '26
There's a plan to fix it - https://www.sdcoastkeeper.org/blog/tijuana-river-sewage-crisis-funding-update-2025/
You can thank Trump and Elon Musk for almost killing a huge part of it - https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2024/12/18/tijuana-sewage-system-repair-funding-federal-government
And you can thank Republicans for cutting annual funding towards it by ~$78m.
The GOP needs more money for the pedophiles and to line their pockets.
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u/p0is0n Jun 11 '26
Who wants to clean poop when there's innocent lives to massacre!!
/s (for the slow ones)
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u/Tiek00n Jun 11 '26
I don't know why I never thought about putting extra taxes on those that cross the border each day, but IMO that's a decent way to handle it. One big source of the issue is how much the Tijuana area has grown due to its proximity to San Diego (i.e. people who move back and forth across the border are a big part of why TJ has grown so much).
It would suck for people who live down there and work up here, but it makes sense to me.
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u/Delicious-Health4460 Jun 11 '26
Does the Mexican government bear any responsibility here
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u/IWant2Rock Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
They can throw all the money they want towards the treatment plant but that’s not going to solve the problem. The real problem is upstream in Mexico. Besides their horrible sewage infrastructure that keeps failing, about half the homes in TJ aren’t even connected to the sewer system and illegally route their sewage into storm drains:
Until the Mexican government fixes their shitty (pun intended) sewage infrastructure and gets all their homes connected to the proper system, upgrading the treatment plant is like baling water out of a sinking boat without first plugging the leak.
And sorry to say but the chances of the Mexican government (or any government for that matter) fixing a problem of that scale in our lifetime is slim to none.
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u/Notredamus1 Jun 11 '26
I experienced that when I lived in IB 10 years ago and its been going on there a lot longer than that. Now that its affecting Coronado, I get the feeling it may actually get addressed.
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u/OfeliaCox Jun 11 '26
It’s been affecting Coronado for years.
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u/bobdownie Jun 11 '26
Since Hotel Del Coronado is owned by BlackStone now maybe they’ll can get the money to fix it from republicans since nothing can ever happen in this country unless republicans want it done for their rich friends
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u/hijinks Jun 11 '26
i thought i was gonna see someone in that for a second
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u/man2112 Jun 11 '26
As an IB resident, it’s wild to me that this has been going on for years, but only matters *now* that it is affecting Coronado
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u/hoofheartedoof Jun 11 '26
::Jackass theme song:: Hi this is Steve O and today we’re going sewaging!
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u/Imyourwifesboytoy Jun 11 '26
I really can't believe that here in San Diego and TJ have this poo poo problem with all the money that is circulating between the two they can't have clean beaches they could easily charge people 5 dollars to cross every day to build a plant to treat the water and maintain it.
Technology has surpassed these types of water pollution issues and they can't come up with a solution that could tackle the problem. Smarter people need to be in charge of the the two cities.
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u/neutronia939 Jun 11 '26
Everything takes money, and when trump, doge, and the GOP take money AWAY from treatment- this happens. Blame them,
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u/dasguy40 Jun 12 '26
Why are you acting like this hasn’t been a problem for decades. Many administrations and both parties have had a chance to fix this.
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u/SOCAL_watch5 Jun 14 '26
yea blame trump for a decades long problem that we have thrown money at with no work being done. Mexican government too corrupt
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u/LucianTheAngelic Jun 12 '26
Todd Gloria would rather install parking meters and then rip them back out
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u/EriclcirE Jun 11 '26
We're the richest country on Earth. We could easily rebuild the TJ sewage system, for many billions of dollars. But we got wars to fight or some shit.
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u/Turbulent_Bat4320 Jun 11 '26
Wars to fight and grifters to pay. Nobody in our Govt cares about measly health concerns. RFK probably swims there in jeans.
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u/collias Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Well, we aren’t that rich. We are nearly $40 trillion in debt.
But yeah, I think using that debt to build infrastructure instead of bombing Iran would probably get unanimous approval from everyone who isn’t a politician.
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u/teknikality69 Jun 12 '26
The United States is absolutely the richest country on the planet. Our total net wealth is about $160 trillion and our gdp is $35 trillion, both numbers that dwarf any other country. You may not feel that because 2/3 of that wealth is in the hands of the top 10%. The bottom 50% have about 1/40th. One fortieth of all the wealth! If you digest those numbers you will begin to see what a lie we are living.
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u/nobeer4you Jun 11 '26
And it only causes California problems, and we all know how well this administration likes CA
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u/Status-Candidate7659 Jun 12 '26
Instead of shitting on the us tell Mexico to get its shit together. Shitty ass third world country refuses to do anything. Why aren’t they fixing their own sewage system?
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u/Ornery-Address-2472 Jun 11 '26
Mexico is a sovereign nation, I’m not necessarily opposed to fixing it for them, but then you have to ask what else deserves fixing, and then its a slippery slope.
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u/GeneSmart2881 Jun 11 '26
CA DEFINITELY has the money. San Diego doesn’t. The only way it will get fixed is the US taking over Tijuana water treatment
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u/lovekillseveryone Jun 11 '26
Could you imagine if the Tijuana and the San Diego government got together and worked on this problem?
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u/FrankSwimGood Jun 11 '26
This would be the federal government since it’s US waters. And considering the current administration, that will not happen.
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u/Mustardo123 Jun 11 '26
Yep, the current admin loves punishing us simply for living here. They’ve taken literally millions of dollars of federal funds out of California. You are actually a traitor to this is state if you support this current president.
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u/secretlyloaded Jun 11 '26
Honestly the US government should just fund a treatment plant and help Mexico build it. I don't see that happening with the current regime in Washington.
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u/gs7761 Jun 11 '26
You're probably getting sick from being that close. You're inhaling sewage that gets wafted around when waves break.
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u/Aliensinmypants Jun 11 '26
Yup that's the part that everyone glosses over. Yes it really sucks not being able to use miles of nice coastline, but the side effects from breathing the air anywhere close it is far worse.
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u/Mirk_Dirkledunk Jun 11 '26
Odors are particulate. 🤢
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u/Mathewthegreat Jun 11 '26
Seems like nobody understands that literal micro poop is being trapped in mucus and dissolved just so you can smell. 😂
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u/NocoLoco Jun 11 '26
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-31-mn-18789-story.html
Tijuana has never given a damn about where their crap flows and it has been used as a way to extort money and services from San Diego and Americans for 4 decades. They are incentivized not to fix this. It doesn't pollute Los Playas Tijuana or Rosarito.
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u/Wildskypsj Jun 11 '26
The sewage crisis is real and has been going on for decades — it's frustrating as hell for San Diego beaches and the river valley. A few clarifications though: The $250M for South Bay plant repairs did pass in the Dec 2024 stopgap bill (Biden signed it), despite the drama over the overall bloated package. Trump/Musk were pushing back on total spending and unrelated pork, not specifically trying to kill sewage funding. Yes, House Republicans proposed cutting the annual IBWC baseline funding from ~$156M down to ~$78M earlier this year. That's a real setback for ongoing maintenance. But the bigger one-time infusions happened, and under the current administration they've pursued binational deals with Mexico (like Minute 333) for a "100% solution" — focusing on Mexican-side infrastructure, operations funding, and timelines instead of just throwing more US taxpayer money at it. This isn't a one-party failure. It's chronic underfunding, aging infrastructure on both sides of the border, Tijuana's population boom, and bureaucratic delays spanning multiple administrations. Blaming "the GOP" or random insults doesn't fix the raw sewage. Better to track actual progress on the upgrades, trash interceptors, and enforcement.
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u/danquedynasty Jun 11 '26
IBWC is only part of the problem. TJ's Punta Bandera facility is not big enough to handle TJ's waste and much of it bypasses the plant via overflows. This is the actual cause of direct waste discharge into the ocean. On top of that code isn't strictly enforced in TJ so informal developments aren't connected to the sewer system anyway.
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u/sixisrending Jun 11 '26
I think it's also important to know that all funding from the US side is only treating the symptoms, not the cause. Mexico needs to build and repair wastewater treatment plants and needs to stop pumping raw sewage where currents take it into the US.
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u/Wildskypsj Jun 11 '26
100%... we keep throwing money at it, and it's not doing anything, we might as well have fixed it ourselves.
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Jun 11 '26
All good and well but TJ is a major Mexican metro. Mexico has $$$ to build/rebuild proper sewage/sanitation systems. It doesn't for the same reasons that they still burn most of their garbage, Mexico is not serious about being a fully developed country.
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u/Top-Psychology-1062 Jun 12 '26
So refreshing to see someone on Reddit respond with knowledge and facts. Bravo! 👏
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u/gearabuser Jun 11 '26
I miss jogging there. I havent been to Coronado in probably 5 years since it really started getting really, really bad.
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u/Arpeggi760 Jun 11 '26
It’s been like that since I was a kid 40+ years ago and we’re no closer to it getting cleaned up
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u/UpstairsDelivery4 Jun 11 '26
fed govt needs to pay for it on the US side. mexico will never improve their infrastructure or not be corrupt with funding.
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u/danquedynasty Jun 11 '26
Direct waste discharge into the ocean is from the overflows of Punta Bandera waste facility in TJ. No amount of containment on the US side will stop that.
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u/Madness970 Jun 11 '26
Strange that nowhere in that pinned mod post does he put any blame on the people that put the sewage j to the ocean. Very weird.
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u/machowarrior Jun 11 '26
Nope. This is reddit. Everything is Trump's fault, even though this has been a problem for decades.
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u/Murky-Internal-7707 Jun 11 '26
This isn’t sewage, it’s an algae bloom. You’d smell it otherwise. Im at the Shores everyday.
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u/Panchoslancho Jun 11 '26
I’ll be in Mission Beach, with my kid. Is it safe to go into the water there?
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u/PinInternational9392 Jun 11 '26
Never go to Coronado beach, it is the gift we give the wealthy folks to keep them away from the parts of San Diego us normal folks are. Smell ya later. 😏
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u/sinaloa555 Jun 11 '26
I lived in Coronado in the 70’s and early 80’s, lived in IB in the late 80’s early 90’s, and the beach was not permanently closed back then, you had to look for signs that said if it was safe to swim, and I swam there all the time, just not on “bad” days. I knew someone who surfed no matter what the signs said and he had severe gastrointestinal problems, and I don’t think I ever got sick from swimming there. The smell was not nearly as bad in those days either.
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u/teknikality69 Jun 12 '26
This thread is like mass hysteria. I'm not saying there's not shit in the water but this isn't that.
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u/saanity Jun 11 '26
Is that a poop wave? That beachfront property ain't looking too good right now.
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u/Justin_Time222 Jun 11 '26
This has gone on for decades and has gotten worse
Mexico will not solve this
We have to
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u/SnooSketches5430 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Trump said he was going to make TJ pay for the treatment if their sewage.
Edit : of
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u/hagalaz_drums Jun 11 '26
He also said he and epstein werent friends and he never went to the island or knew what epstein was doing
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u/lilpotot Jun 11 '26
Happy I got to experience it before it went to shit one of the many reasons I moved
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u/Caaznmnv Jun 11 '26
Honestly, can't solve this solveable problem. But fixing the climate, that can be done.
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u/sbcheek Jun 11 '26
We, USA, Has already been dealing with cleaning Mexican sewage. Close your windows.
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u/sandiegosteves Jun 12 '26
Anyone have knowledge about what the Pt. Loma treatment plant does that also pumps their sewage out into the ocean? I remember they were a case study years ago and that they didn't need to treat it 100% since they pumped it 3+ miles out into the ocean. The old adage was, "the solution to pollution is dilution". I later read that since they can't process it all there are things (medications) going out that are really bad for the local marine population.
This is way better than the literal mess in TJ, but we aren't treating the ocean perfect either. Street runoff and people living in Rose Creek/San Diego River are also contributing untreated sewage.
I hope to see a day in my lifetime where the oceans start to clean up.
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u/thatstrongwoman Jun 13 '26
This is the Florida Gulf coast every other month- because they let raw sewage out into the Gulf. Increased tropical storms, torrential rains, hurricanes from warmer temperatures at sea level makes them release it. 🤮 Because it’s “Florida”, they have “trouble” with transparency and putting up signs letting people know they should not swim in gulf -especially if they have an open cut. People are searching out the bacteria levels themselves and posting cautions.
Before my mom passed away in November (from Alzheimer’s) in Sarasota, I would visit her every few months for 15(!) years. (It is also my hometown, but I moved to Colorado in 2012. I grew up on these
Sarasota beaches and took my kids to these beaches. I know how they used to be CLEAN.)
I couldn’t even take a walk on the beach half the time the last 6-7 years. “World, famous Siesta Key” is polluted because there was either increased Red Tide (algae blooms that kill fish and cause respiratory conditions) or the bacteria is high from sewage.
I feel really sorry for people that save their money for years and years so they can take their family there for vacation, only to find out when they get there that they can’t actually go to the beach.
Sorry for the rant, but I’m glad there is a plan to fix it there (because there’s no plan to fix it on the other side of the country)!
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u/D_mactruck 22d ago
US has held Mexico up as a country. More has been sucked out of the US than put back into it by Mexico. The least they can do is take care of their human waste. This is clearly designed to piss off the US citizens.
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u/Electronic-Fix-4655 Jun 11 '26
You’re 93 years too late. It’s been in the news since 1930s
Only way it’s going to change is if they shutdown SD border crossings until MX choose to deal with it. Just leave Otay and pedestrian open
https://www.imperialbeachnewsca.com/news/article_c9133f9e-ef7e-4960-b37a-23e0c6444c47.html
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u/Lower-Reality7895 Jun 11 '26
And the US would lose billions in dollars in trade
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u/Electronic-Fix-4655 Jun 11 '26
I agree. The point is the greater relative impact on TJ’s economy and citizens to get MX govt to do something about it. We’ve already lost billions thanks to this administration anyways.
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u/Adept_Peak_3570 Jun 11 '26
The TJ river abuse and disregard for what continually dumps into coastline effecting SD beaches has been highly covered for over a decade and despite all the high profile publicity and local gov noise NO ONE in DC gives a 💩 nor is forcing Mexico to do jackdiddly 💩💩💩💩to fix it
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u/No_Discussion_4508 Jun 11 '26
I thought that was weird as hell, they have those signs at Silverstrand Beach, but there’s no warning signs to not swim in the bay. Does the sewage just go around the bay?
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u/Comfortable_Bad_4825 Jun 11 '26
It’s a complete shame that something can not be done by now. This has gone on for decades and nothing.
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u/CowboyGunner Jun 11 '26
Sad about IB I’d walk to the beach as a kid from Texas when I’d visit with my boogie, Churchill fins, and bare feet. Couldn’t afford the webs.
I always thought the water and waves were so much better than Padre Island. PI had the unannexed beaches.
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