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- California opened applications for $46 million in new grants on June 11, 2026, to fight pollution in the Tijuana River and New River.
- San Diego County launched an economic impact study last week to measure what the decades-long sewage crisis has truly cost the region.
- Tijuana’s City Hall approved a formal proposal last week calling on Mexico’s federal water agency to clean out the river channel.
- A company with ties to a Trump donor received a $2.5 million no-bid federal contract to test an experimental water treatment on the Tijuana River.
- Advocates credit a 2025 endangered rivers report with helping push the United States and Mexico toward a landmark pollution agreement.
Thursday, June 25, 2026 — The Tijuana River has been making news on both sides of the border. In the span of just two weeks, California announced tens of millions of dollars in new grants, San Diego researchers asked the public for help measuring the economic damage, Tijuana’s city government pushed its own federal authorities to act, and a little-known Ohio company found itself at the center of controversy for its unusual approach to cleaning one of America’s most polluted rivers.
Here is what is happening, and why it matters.
A River That Belongs to Two Nations but Troubles One Community.
The Tijuana River starts in Mexico and flows north into the United States, emptying near the Pacific Ocean at the southern edge of San Diego County. Along the way, it picks up raw sewage, industrial waste, plastic bags, tires, mattresses, and other debris from Tijuana’s overburdened drainage systems. When those pollutants cross the border, they foul beaches, sicken residents, and choke fragile coastal wetlands.
The New River faces a similar problem. It flows northward across the border through the Imperial Valley city of Calexico and eventually reaches the Salton Sea, some 60 miles inland. Like the Tijuana River, it carries raw sewage, industrial runoff, and solid waste from Mexico into U.S. territory…