Why is Imperial Beach still closed?

The beach has been closed for most of the past several years. Here's the short answer, and what would have to change for it to reopen.

Written by Stacy Willis with AI research assistanceReviewed September 23, 20266 min readHow this site is made

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Sewage from Tijuana reaches Imperial Beach down the Tijuana River and up the coast from Punta Bandera.
In storms, river flows overwhelm the pumps meant to divert them. In dry months, the Punta Bandera plume is the main cause.
Big fixes are underway but most finish between 2027 and 2031, and the storm-flow and Punta Bandera problems still lack funded solutions.

If you live here, you know the signs by heart. What's harder to find is a straight answer to why, after years of attention and hundreds of millions of dollars, the water still isn't safe.

It's two problems, not one

Most coverage focuses on the river. But researchers at Scripps found that in dry months, the main source of beach-closing pollution is Punta Bandera, a treatment plant about five miles south that discharges roughly half its sewage untreated onto the shore.

See it on the mapWhat reaches the ocean, dry season vs. stormsOpen Follow the Flow

The fixes that are funded mostly address dry-weather flows and plant capacity. The hardest two pieces are still open questions.

[The rest of the post continues here, following the same pattern: short sections, a map link where it helps, sources numbered in the text.]

It's two problems, not one

Sources