Tijuana River pollution impacts the community's public health, the environment, and the economy along the San Diego-Tijuana border. Much of this pollution comes from a lack of proper sewage collection/treatment and trash collection infrastructure in Tijuana, the root cause of which is a lack of resources to deal with the number of people living and working in the city. Trade agreements, like NAFTA, attract international companies to Tijuana with the promise of cheap labor and easy access to the U.S. consumer market. In turn, thousands of job seekers rapidly increased Tijuana’s population, contributing to the proliferation of unplanned urban development. As Tijuana has grown, so have binational environmental problems, like pollution in the Tijuana River, that affect communities on both sides of the international border.

Only through a comprehensive binational community based approach in partnership with local, state and federal agencies can the impacts posed by Tijuana River pollution be addressed.