Biden watched Mexico pump raw sewage onto Navy SEAL training beaches for four years.
Trump sent Lee Zeldin to fix it.
What Zeldin just pulled off is the kind of thing they told you was impossible.
Thirty Million Gallons a Day While Democrats Did Nothing
Up to 30 million gallons of raw sewage-contaminated water pour from Tijuana into the Pacific Ocean every single day.
Not a year. A day.
The Tijuana River carries untreated Mexican wastewater across the border and dumps it directly into American coastal waters, where ocean currents push it north along the California coast.
Beaches near the historic Hotel del Coronado have faced repeated closures because the water is too contaminated to touch.
Children near Coronado are developing asthma symptoms and skin rashes tied directly to the pollution.
Residents report a sewage stench drifting into their homes for months at a stretch.
Navy SEALs – America's most elite warriors – have been training in sewage-contaminated water at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado because the federal government refused to act.
One Border Patrol agent told Congressman Darrell Issa the river water was so toxic it started dissolving his boots.
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond called this one of the worst environmental and public health crises in the country that no one was talking about.
He was right.
The Tijuana sewage crisis has been documented since the 1990s.
More than 200 billion gallons of toxic wastewater have crossed into California from Mexico since 2018 alone.
Four presidents. Thirty years. Strongly worded letters. Diplomatic sensitivity. Bureaucratic working groups.
The sewage kept flowing.
The Project That Was Supposed to Take Two Years
Here's what changed when Trump took office.
Lee Zeldin traveled to San Diego in April 2025 and toured the Tijuana River Valley by helicopter to personally survey the contamination.
He didn't send a deputy.
https://twitter.com/SenAdamSchiff/status/2050680072852373777?s=20
He went himself.
Ninety days later, Zeldin signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Mexico that committed both sides to a permanent, 100% solution on the shortest possible timeline.
Then his team turned to the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant – a 10-million-gallon-per-day expansion that had been projected to take two full years to complete.
Zeldin's team finished it in 100 days.
That expansion boosted the plant's total treatment capacity by 40%, pulling an additional 10 million gallons per day of contaminated water out of the Tijuana River before it reaches American beaches and lungs.
Mexico Is Now Building What Washington Spent Decades Requesting
The MOU didn't just fix the American side.
It forced Mexico to commit the remaining $93 million in Minute 328 funds it had been sitting on since a 2022 agreement – money earmarked for Tijuana infrastructure that Mexico had never deployed.
Mexico has begun construction on repairs to the Tijuana River Gates that were allowing millions of gallons of sewage to surge into American waters during every rainstorm.
https://twitter.com/TheKevinDalton/status/2045221213900075498?s=20
A new binational working group is assessing expanding Mexico's main treatment plant from 18 million gallons per day to 43 million.
Since the July MOU, construction timelines have been cut again and again – 12 years of projected construction time slashed across all projects.
Congressman Darrell Issa put it plainly after the MOU was signed: the Trump Administration "refused to accept the failed status quo and turned decades of inaction into a durable solution that is built to last."
That's the story.
Zeldin flew to San Diego in April.
The treatment plant was expanded by August.
Mexico is now building infrastructure it spent three decades ignoring.
The people who told you this problem couldn't be solved were the same people who weren't trying to solve it.
Sources:
- "Trump Administration Announces Another Historic Milestone Toward Implementing 100% Solution to the Tijuana River Sewage Crisis," U.S. EPA, December 15, 2025.
- "Administrator Zeldin Returns to San Diego as Trump EPA Continues Implementation of 100% Solution," U.S. EPA, February 9, 2026.
- "Trump EPA Announces Additional Construction Timeline Reductions for Infrastructure Projects," U.S. EPA, October 30, 2025.
- "Issa Praises EPA's Breakthrough Agreement to End Tijuana River Sewage Crisis," Office of Rep. Darrell Issa, July 25, 2025.
- Louis Casiano, "Trump Demands Mexico Stop Sewage Flow Into U.S. Border States," Fox News, December 10, 2025.
- Kelly McGreal, "Tsunami of Sewage from Mexico Barrels Toward US Coastline, Officials Warn," Fox News, May 10, 2026.