Tijuana River Emergency

A Better Way Forward for the Tijuana River Valley (click through slides below)

For decades, the Tijuana River Valley crisis has been treated as someone else’s problem, even as families in the South Bay live with polluted air, contaminated water, beach closures, and daily threats to public health. The facts are clear: worsening infrastructure in Mexico, repeated sewage spills, fragmented projects, and poor coordination among agencies with overlapping jurisdiction have left our region stuck in a cycle of reaction instead of resolution. Too many entities have a piece of the problem, but no single body is responsible for driving a unified response.

That is why a regional authority is the solution we need to rally behind. A JPA-style authority would not replace existing federal, binational, or treaty responsibilities. It would do what is missing now: bring everyone to one table, align priorities, coordinate projects, track results, and create real accountability for delivery. It would give the region a structure built to match the scale of the emergency, direct resources through a single implementation framework, and keep pressure on every agency to move with urgency. If this is truly a public health emergency, then it must be treated like one. A regional authority gives us the best chance to turn years of fragmentation into focused action and finally deliver the sustained response this crisis demands.

For media contact: rafa@rafaperez.net or (619)333-0116