[HN Gopher] Tijuana's illegal sewer hookups linked to cross-bord...
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Tijuana's illegal sewer hookups linked to cross-border pollution
Author : geox
Score : 55 points
Date : 2023-08-12 20:09 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kpbs.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kpbs.org)
| onetimeusename wrote:
| _the federal appropriations bill signed last December cleared the
| way for the EPA to transfer $300 million to the International
| Boundary and Water Commission for infrastructure projects._
|
| So is the US paying for sewer works in Mexico? This doesn't feel
| right to me when the article points out the problem is a failure
| of Mexican government and citizens to properly address the
| problem. How do we even know the money will be put to good use?
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| US (and EU, and Japanese...) aid to much of the developing
| world goes to building sewage, it is one of the key steps to
| improving community health.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Funny, last time I was there (nearly two decades ago), the sewers
| were overflowing heaps of shit into the street gutters...
| Memorable. Crazy city, even for Mexico.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| You might want to go back and see if that "crazy city"
| conclusion merits revision. I visited Tijuana last winter and
| was amazed how little it resembled stereotypes from two decades
| ago. No longer are there any safety concerns about walking or
| cycling across the city during the day, and I discovered that
| thousands of Southern Californians are now living across the
| border and commuting to work everyday, because cost of living
| is much cheaper in Mexico and crossing is fast with Global
| Entry.
| avar wrote:
| The article concludes:
|
| > A long-term solution requires sustained investment of millions
| of dollars into identifying every illegal connection and
| correcting it.
|
| Couldn't they just restrict flow through the system when it's not
| raining?
|
| Then illegal connections would identify themselves in the form of
| overflowing toilets.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| I don't understand how this would work... is there some
| surefire way of knowing it is raining, and then somehow opening
| up the storm drains in time for the runoff?
|
| Remember that if this automatic opening-closing mechanism
| fails, you get widespread flooding, likely leading to a lot of
| property damage and maybe even some lives lost depending on the
| severity of the storm.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Sewage and tap water situation is a metric I use to judge
| countries if they care about their citizens! :)
|
| https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Water-Quali...
| zapdrive wrote:
| Meanwhile enjoy your 20$ drinks with a paper straw across the
| border here in San Diego! Or pay $1 for a bag at the grocery
| store. We are saving the environment, yay!
| Reptur wrote:
| Yeah, this is one of those problems that leadership just ignores
| and passes to the next person.
|
| "Reports of sewage leaking over the border into the San Diego
| region stretch back at least to the 1930s. Significant
| improvements were made in the 1990s, but Tijuana's wastewater
| facilities haven't kept pace with growth while many poorer
| communities remain unconnected to the city's sewer system."
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-25/tijuana-...
| Solvency wrote:
| But why? Surely this is perfect Republican fuel? They're
| constantly obsessing over walls... why not raise a stink over
| invasive sewage?
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Do they not raise a stink? They certainly don't care about
| handing money to San Diego, which is mostly Democrat-voting
| and an insanely expensive place to live. They probably want
| the sewage spills to continue so they can point to the SD-
| Tijuana metro as liberal-immigrant failure.
|
| Remember Tucker Carlson is originally from La Jolla, one of
| the wealthiest parts of the city of San Diego.
| [deleted]
| melling wrote:
| Yep, illegal/legal immigration can cost elections. It's also
| a very tiring topic.
|
| Perhaps we should address the problem rather than leave the
| current mess in place thus removing it from politics?
|
| Kind of strange that people bought into the idea of a big
| wall but politicians will run on whatever gets them votes.
|
| Democrats say immigration is no big deal but complain they
| need funding.
|
| https://abc7ny.com/amp/nyc-migrant-shelters-port-
| authority-m...
|
| In the meantime, we have labor shortages that could certainly
| be addressed by more legal immigration
| goodbyesf wrote:
| > In the meantime, we have labor shortages that could
| certainly be addressed by more legal immigration
|
| In a country of 330 million people, it's hard to envision
| us having labor shortages. Do we really have labor
| shortages or a low wage problem? Also, both legal and
| illegal immigration addresses labor shortages, if indeed
| such a thing exists.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| We have a shortage of people willing to work for terrible
| wages and no benefits.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Depends on the job.
|
| There are physically demanding low paying work in
| agriculture for instance that would be challenging to
| fill at any wage that wouldn't result in sticker shock
| down the line.
|
| Americans don't want to destroy their back 12 hours a day
| for a short term job that will need a only a fraction of
| the labor after harvest is done.
|
| Many other jobs could profitably be automated away or
| filled by Americans.
|
| I would prefer we accept immigrants because it's the
| right thing to do and because long term those people and
| their children will enrich and add value to our society
| rather than hoping it will do something about the help
| wanted signs in the service industry.
| martin1975 wrote:
| Democrats don't mind sewage spilling into the USA? Which do
| you think is easier to clean up, 50M illegals or border
| sewage leaks?
| [deleted]
| asu_thomas wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| zdw wrote:
| This also spills over (literally) into California - many of the
| beaches in San Diego are unswimmable due to contamination.
|
| (ref: Went to Coronado Island beach. Went in Water. Lifeguards
| chased me down and told me to wash off really well...)
| kadoban wrote:
| Isn't this endemic in beaches throught the country? I grew up
| in NY and one summer job I had was testing beaches for bacteria
| levels. Most beaches were one rainy day away from being closed
| down, and they were certainly nowhere near Mexico.
| gedy wrote:
| TJ runoff is at much worse levels, don't have link handy
| though
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| > Most beaches were one rainy day away from being closed
| down, and they were certainly nowhere near Mexico.
|
| I think this is the most salient point -- most beaches are
| probably fine most of the time, but when you get a big storm
| or some other event that causes a lot of runoff, the beaches
| quickly become health hazards. And it doesn't even need to be
| anything particularly nefarious, even just dumping a bunch of
| nutrients into the water will cause more things to grow,
| nasty things included.
|
| I've been to plenty of beaches where after a strong rain,
| they had signs out on the beach warning about potential
| sewage runoff, and to avoid swimming in the water.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I never knew this until I Googled 'is it OK to surf in the
| rain?'. In the context of urban beaches. I think the answer
| was yes, as long as it wasn't the first rain after a dry
| period, because of runoff from streets etc.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| That's in tfa. The drainage pipes are discharging when
| there's been no rain at all (and there's not much rain in
| baja california)
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| correct, many beaches in new england have been closed this
| year off and on due to heavy rainfall bringing bacteria from
| human waste
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Yeah you have to go up to Pacific Beach / La Jolla and farther
| north to avoid the runoff from the Tijuana river. Of course
| during long dry spells it is not so bad, because there is
| basically no runoff. Imperial Beach is almost always dirty,
| though.
| m463 wrote:
| You would love Acapulco, where _everything_ drains into ocean
| srvmshr wrote:
| > _Bautista Corona said city workers have collected 6,000 tons of
| trash from storm drains over the last three years through a
| program that specifically targets big items like couches and
| refrigerators._
|
| Good griefs. That is a new one for me. I would not expect to see
| couches & refrigerators dumped into manholes anywhere.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| They're not being dumped down a manhole. More than likely,
| things like that are being dumped into the larger open storm
| drain canals. And often storm drains run along the courses of
| creeks or rivers that have been covered up/paved over, so it's
| more like throwing your garbage into the nearby river.
| toast0 wrote:
| Probably not so much forcing couches and refrigerators through
| the drains on streets, but tossing them into the typically open
| air channels where storm water flows on its way from street
| drains to rivers or the shore.
|
| Some places have combined sewers where storm water drains into
| the same underground channes and pipes as sanitary sewage; it
| would be hard to dump couches and refrigerators there. But
| that's usually seen in cities with very old infrastructure:
| combined sewers don't make sense when you have sewage treatment
| plants. During a storm you have a lot more flow, and you'll
| exceed the capacity of your treatment plant and have to let
| untreated water through. Even in separate sewers, you have
| higher flow in the rainy season; utility sewer pipes aren't
| usually sealed at connections, so if there's a lot of ground
| water, it leaks into the pipes and flows through; the change in
| volume during a storm is usually not that fast, but flow rates
| during the rainy season will be significantly higher than the
| dry season.
|
| Sounds like Tijuana has separate sewers, but lots of
| unauthorized connections from indoor plumbing to the storm
| sewers.
| esaym wrote:
| Is this news? I went to Big Bend park in like 1995 and was told
| to stay out of the Rio Grande unless I wanted disease.
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(page generated 2023-08-12 23:00 UTC)