Everything about The Tijuana River totally explained
The
Tijuana River (
Spanish:
Río Tijuana) is an
intermittent river, 120 mi (195 km) long, on the
Pacific coast of northern
Baja California in
Mexico and southern
California in the
United States.
Location
It drains an arid area along the
U.S.–Mexico border, flowing through Mexico for most its course then crossing the border for its lower 5 mi (8 km) to empty into the ocean in an
estuary on the southern edge of
San Diego. Its lower reaches provide the last undeveloped coast
wetlands in
San Diego County amidst a highly urbanized environment at the southern city limits of
Imperial Beach. The river has been the subject of great controversy in recent decades regarding
pollution,
flood control, and U.S. border protection.
Description
It rises in the
Sierra de Juárez of northern Baja California, approximately 45 mi (70 km) ENE of
Ensenada. It flows WNW through
Tijuana, crossing the border approximately 5 mi (8 km) from the Pacific. It flows west, just skirting the international border south of the San Ysidro section of San Diego. It enters the Pacific 10 mi (15 km) south of downtown San Diego at the southern city limits of
Imperial Beach. The lower 2 mi (3 km) of the river form a broad mud flat estuary that's prone to flooding in years of heavy rains. It is impounded in Mexico southeast of Tijuana by the
Abelardo L. Rodríguez Dam for drinking water and
irrigation.
The
Tijuana River Reserve, established as part of the
National Estuarine Research Reserve system in the United States and managed in part as a Biological Field Station by
San Diego State University (SDSU)'s College of Sciences, protects part of the estuary of the river near the ocean in the United States.
The river has been used as a wastewater conduit for much of the last several decades. Partial progress was made in the 1980s with a
Clean Water Grant from the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to improve wastewater treatment to protect estuary waters. Despite cross-border efforts to clean it up, raw sewage overflows in the surrounding canyons on the Mexico side of the border are a recurring problem along the river. According to a 1993 report
(External Link
) by the city of San Diego, the city had collected and treated an average of 13 million gallons (50 million liters) per day of raw
sewage that had crossed the Mexican border from Tijuana into
California.
The mouth of the Tijuana River is the location of the legendary Tijuana Sloughs big-wave surfing break. Alan "Dempsey" Holder, a pioneering California big-wave surfer surfed waves over a mile from shore at the mouth of the Tijuana River starting in the
1930s. Through the
1950s he surfed the break with legends such as Peter Cole, Kimble Daun and Ron "Canoe" Drummond. A small underground group of big-wave surfers continue to surf the sloughs on 9-10' surfboards, but pollution and flooding has adversely impacted the waves. And big-wave surfing in the region has shifted to areas like
Todos Santos Island and the Cortez Bank.
Further Information
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