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Sustainable Urban Water ManagementTransboundary Region of Tijuana - San Diego

1) TitleWater Supply and Sanitation in the Transboundary Region of Tijuana

(Mexico) - San Diego (USA)

1a) General Information

The case study location is in the transboundary region of Tijuana-San

Diego. Tijuana is in the state of Baja California in Mexico and San

Diego is in the state of California in the United States of America. This

transboundary region is a binational metropolitan area with a wall

between the two cities. Following it is the case study location from a global perspective:

These two cities share many things but also has many differences. Related with water issues both

cities share the same natural environment but they have different institutional frameworks. Following

there is a table which shows general information about these two cities:

Element Tijuana (Mexico) San Diego (USA)

Population 1,670,365 inhabitants 1,368,061 inhabitants

GDP per capita $10,119 dollars $33,135 dollars

Urban percentage 99% 100%

Colorado River dependency 90% 85%

Shared Transboundary Waters Agreement

10% 90%

Agricultural Use of the Water of Colorado River

87% 80%

Figure 1: Statistics on Tijuana and San Diego

2) Introduction and background

The transboundary region of Tijuana-San Diego:The history of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) has its roots in the 1848

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Treaty of 1853. These treaties created the first

binational commissions to review the geographical limits and new infrastructure between Mexico

and United States of America. The Water Treaty of 1944 was the formal arrangement to share water

between the two countries, with this treaty the IBWC has the status of an international body and

consists of a United States Section and a Mexican Section and each Section is headed by a

commissioner, two principal engineers, a legal adviser and a secretary. The Treaty of 1944 has

three main objectives related with water supply and sanitation in the Colorado River. The first one is

the agreement of sharing water, there are allotted to Mexico a guaranteed annual quantity of 1.5

million acre-feet to be delivered. The second one is to give preferential attention to the solution of all

border sanitation problems. The third one is to agree binational infrastructure to manage water

flows. Otherwise, Tijuana and San Diego also share the South Bay International Wastewater

Treatment Plant (SBIWTP) which is located in San Diego, California. The construction was paid for

USA and Mexico has to pay for water treatment (IBWC, 2015).

Tijuana, Baja California, MexicoCurrently, Tijuana’s population uses the Colorado River as the main source of water supply. The

water from the Colorado River is transported by a 140 km aqueduct from Mexicali Valley to Tijuana

City. The most expensive stretch for this aqueduct is to overcome one kilometer height for about 60

kilometers length at Sierra La Rumorosa in which case is necessary to use energy to overcome the

gravity (CESPT, 2015b). The lack of water has been one of the biggest urban problems because of

the rapid growth, between 1930 and 1960 (30 years) the population grew almost 15 times, from

11,271 to 165,417 inhabitants (CESPT, 2015c).

The Comision Estatal de Servicios Publicos de Tijuana (CESPT) in English Special Commission for

Public Services of Tijuana is a state-provincial commission and it has a hierarchical organizational

structure composed as follows:

The State Governor or his representative

The Minister of Infrastructure and Urban Development of the State

The Minister of Planning and Finance of the State

The Major of Tijuana

The Major of Playas de Rosarito

Two representatives of the private sector and one representative of the social sector

This administrative council designs a director to manage the water organization in Tijuana in which

organization has a hierarchical design and it has a decentralization strategy with eight territorial

divisions in order to reduce the complexity of the big city and to focus attention in more concrete

areas. Otherwise, in the last months Tijuana is facing a serious drought as shown in Figure 1. The

map is from the National Water Commision (CONAGUA) in Mexico and the red spot on the map is in

the metropolitan area of Tijuana. In this sense, Tijuana has an historical problem with lack of water

and in the recent months also has a extreme drought (CONAGUA, 2015).

Figure 1: Potential drought areas within Mexico (CONAGUA)

San Diego, California, United States of America:San Diego imports around 90% of its water from the California Aqueduct and from the Colorado

River Aqueduct. The San Diego region has the vulnerability to be negatively affected by shortages

and price increases (Courtney, 2009). The current situation has two sides. One side is related with

water supply and South California has a problem in the competition of water between different uses:

agricultural, urban and environmental. The other side is related with sanitation and South California

has to improve in cleaning up waste water and industrial discharges because these sanitation

problems are increasing the cost of drinking water treatment, harm to aqua systems and decreasing

of economic impact of agriculture (Hanak et. al., 2011).

Water organization in California is very peculiar because it has a structure of many decentralized

organizations which manage water issues with different stakeholders. Water utilities in California

could be organized as one of six general types (Strickland, 2015):

Cities

County Districts

Special Districts

Public Utilities

Mutual Water Companies

Mobile Home Parks

This administrative structure in California in the water sector has a hierarchical design into the

organizations and also it has many governance structure and processes by markets and by

networks using the plenty number of administrative water bodies at the national, state, county, city

and local level. Otherwise, in the last months San Diego as Tijuana are facing a serious drought as

seen in Figure 2. The largest drought severity on the map is in South California in which San Diego

is located (Rippey, 2015).

Figure 2: U.S Drought Monitor (US Department of Agriculture)

3) DescriptionThe big issue on this case study is to understand the different re-actions of Tijuana and San Diego

at very similar drought problem. The main governance processes in Tijuana to face the drought are:

Manager of City Water Authority: Tijuana is facing a drought and it is necessary to ask the

people to reduce water consumption. However, the city has enough water for at least 10

more years.

Bet for water desalination: plans point to build the biggest desalination plant in America with

enough capacity to provide water to Tijuana and even export to San Diego. The strategy is

focused on Public Private Partnerships in which private sector build the infrastructure in

exchange for managing the plants for 20 or 30 years.

Scholars: environmental damage for sea animals and negative effects in economic activities

related with the sea.

Regarding to the governance challenges to overcome the drought in Tijuana are:

It is necessary to develop organized watchdogs in the civil society to balance the different

stakes in water governance.

The strategy is to increase the water offer, however, the water officials do not put enough

attention on residual water treatment, reducing water consumption or to fix the water supply

infrastructure that spoils considerable amount of water.

The desalination plant could have environmental damage and possible negative effects in

the local economy.

Water in private management represents a serious challenge for equity and for water as a

human right. In Mexico, there is a culture of governmental dependency in some issues, one

of this is water. Some of Tijuana citizens do not have enough income to pay water bills but at

the same time there is no culture of water care.

The main governance processes in San Diego to face the drought are:

National Government: 190 million dollars to help California’s drought.

Governor: executive order to reduce consumption of water in California: save water (25%

reduction in potable urban water usage). No measure for agriculture that uses 80% of water

and produces the 2% of economy.

San Diego County District: San Diego County District is following the order but with some

resistance because San Diego residents in the last years had already reduced their

consumption and other counties in California did not do anything and the measure is the

same to all counties.

Citizens: losing trust because they have already reduced the water consumption and the

governor of California did not consider these previous actions whilst other California

residents did not do sacrifices and receive the same treat. Otherwise, some wealthy

residents are asking for pay more to maintain the same water consumption during the

drought.

Farmers: agriculture has significant multiplier effect on California’s economy and they have

century-old rights to use water.

The last actions: the shortage includes some farmers of the most critical region, prohibition of

underground water pumping.

Regarding to the governance challenges to overcome the drought in San Diego are”

The imposing of the executive order has caused problems in the local arrangements and it is

modifying the governance relationships between the stakeholders.

The state authority did not recognize the efforts to reduce the consumption and now the

governor and the water state authority have to establish the framework for the future.

With respect to the governance challenges as transboundary region Tijuana-San Diego are:

Environmental aspect in the basin: both cities are highly depended of the Colorado River and

the decision making is influenced by the immediate necessities for the stakeholders.

Sustainable cooperation: If the drought continues the next year (2016) Mexico will receive a

considerable decrease of water quantity and Tijuana has high dependency of Colorado

River. USA stored water for Mexican use because the 2010 earthquake damaged the

Mexican infrastructure. USA wants to invest in Mexican infrastructure rehabilitation in

exchange of water saved. South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant is located in

the US side (San Diego County). There are plans to build an International Desalination Plant

in the Mexican side (Metropolitan area of Tijuana-Rosarito).

4) Conclusion & Recommendations

What governance mode is more effective to face the drought challenges in an urban area? Is it

better the hierarchical mode of governance? Is it better to include stakeholders in the policy process

using modes as governance by markets and by networks?

I think that the answer is: it depends. It depends of the institutional framework and traditional

practices of each city. When you include many stakeholders is better for the inclusiveness and

engagement of the users in the water issues. When you use market strategies as increase the price

is better for reduce the consumption at any cost. When you govern by hierarchical structure is better

for standardize measures and to do a broader intervention contrary to might what happen with many

embedded jurisdictions.

5) References

Newspaper Articles:

Boxall, B. (2015). Gov. Brown's drought plan goes easy on agriculture consulted on:

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83210310/

Fears D. (2015). Calif. City’s desalination push sparks debate over cost, environmental harm,

consulted on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/california-citys-

desalination-push-sparks-debate-over-costs-coastal-impact/2015/07/08/8f0b2ede-1a84-

11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html

Kuznia, R. (2015). Rich Californians balk at limits: ‘We’re not all equal when it comes to water’

consulted on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rich-californians-youll-have-to-pry-

the-hoses-from-our-cold-dead-hands/2015/06/13/fac6f998-0e39-11e5-9726-

49d6fa26a8c6_story.html

Medina, J. (2015). California Cuts Farmers’ Share of Scant Water consulted on:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/california-announces-restrictions-on-water-use-by-

farmers.html

Laws and Acts:

Governor of the State of California (2015), Executive Order B-29-15. Official documents consulted

on: gov.ca.gov/docs/4.1.15_Executive_Order.pdf

Minute 310 (2003). Emergency delivery of Colorado River water for use in Tijuana. Consulted on:

http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Treaties_Minutes/Minutes_ByProject.html

Minute 319 (2012). Cooperative measures to address the continued effects of the 2010 earthquake

in the Mexicali Valley. Consulted on:

http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Treaties_Minutes/Minutes_ByProject.html

Treaty between Mexico and United States of America (1944). Consulted on:

http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Treaties_Minutes/treaties.html

Websites:

Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana (2015a). Official documents consulted on:

http://www.cespt.gob.mx/TransLicConv/InformacionOficio.aspx

Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana (2015b). Official documents consulted on:

http://www.cespt.gob.mx/culturaagua/articulo_historiaagua1.html).

Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana (2015c). Official documents consulted on:

http://www.cespt.gob.mx/culturaagua/articulo_historiaacueductos.html

Comision Nacional del Agua (CONAGUA) (2015). Official documents consulted on:

www.conagua.gob.mx

Courtney, Shawn (2009). A Tale of Three Cities. New Water Infrastructure in Los Angeles, San

Francisco and San Diego. The POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, University of

Victoria.

Gobierno del Estado de Baja California (2015). Official documents consulted on:

www.copladebc.gob.mx

Government of California (2015). Official documents consulted on: http://ca.gov/drought/

Hanak Ellen, Lund Jay, Dinar Ariel, Gray Brian, Howitt Richard, Mount Jeffrey, Moyle Peter, and

Thompson Barton (2011). “Introduction” in Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to

Reconciliation, Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco.

International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) (2015). Official documents consulted on:

www.ibwc.gov

Rippey, B. (2015). United States Department of Agriculture, consulted on

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

San Diego County Water Authority (2015). Official documents of meetings consulted on:

http://www.sdcwa.org/meetings-and-documents

San Diego Integrated Water Management Plan (2013). Consulted on: http://sdirwmp.org/2013-irwm-

plan-update

South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (2015). Official documents consulted on:

http://www.ibwc.state.gov/mission_operations/sbiwtp.html

Strickland, W. (2015). Private Water Law Blog, documents consulted on: http://privatewaterlaw.com/

United Nations (2010). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 28 July 2010, 64 sixty

fourth session, item 48. Consulted on:

http://www.un.org/es/comun/docs/?symbol=A/RES/64/292&lang=E

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