Water Policy Workgroup
Goal 2: Improve Water Quality
Watersheds along the U.S.-Mexico border region are shared binationally, with rivers flowing from one country to the other or flowing along the international boundary. Promoting beneficial water reuse and trash-free waters initiatives, reducing marine debris and protecting and restoring water quality in binational watersheds requires sustained collaborative binational, multi-jurisdictional planning efforts and actions.
Transboundary pollution poses significant economic and environmental impacts in communities affected by sewage spills conveyed through binational rivers and ocean currents. While historical U.S. and Mexico investments in water infrastructure have improved conditions in many border areas, aging infrastructure and rapid population growth in the border area have resulted in more frequent and larger sewage spills impacting both nations.
The Border 2025 Water Goal builds upon the successes and lessons learned from the Border 2020 Program and aims to address the following significant challenges, which are exacerbated by high population growth rates, droughts and natural disasters:
- Lack of access to safe drinking water, which poses a significant threat to public health in border communities.
- Transboundary flows that create public health, environmental, and safety issues.
- Inadequate collection and treatment of wastewater, which contaminates surface waters and aquifers and threatens public health, the environment and economic growth.
- Inadequate operations and maintenance (O&M) at water and wastewater utilities.
- Lack of beneficial reuse of treated wastewater and conservation of water and energy.
- Excessive trash and sediment carried to rivers and oceans via stormwater.
- Inadequate public access to water quality data, which decreases the public’s ability to know whether a waterbody is safe for recreational use.
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The Border 2025 Water Goal addresses these challenges through the following six objectives:
Note: To see the full details of each goal refer to the framework.
Objective 1: Address Border Water Management in the Tijuana River Watershed. The EPA and SEMARNAT are to coordinate with specific federal, state, and local entities to plan and implement high priority infrastructure projects that address transboundary pollution affecting the Tijuana River watershed.
Objective 2: Improve Drinking Water and Wastewater Treatment Infrastructure. Ten drinking water and/or wastewater projects will be developed and certified by the NADB Board of Directors by 2025 under the Border Water Infrastructure Program.
Objective 3: Improve O&M of Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure.
Objective 4: Promote beneficial reuse of treated wastewater and conservation of water and energy. 100% of Border Water Infrastructure Program projects selected for development will include an assessment of water reuse opportunities, if appropriate by 2025.
Objective 5: Implement projects to prevent and reduce the levels of trash and sediment from entering high priority binational watersheds. Projects that prevent/reduce marine litter should primarily focus on preventing waste at the source through improvements to solid waste management systems, education campaigns, and monitoring as well as reducing trash from entering the aquatic environment through the capture of litter using river booms in known watershed litter hot spots. Funding sources are intended for at least one project in Tijuana River, New River, Rio Grande, and Santa Cruz River watersheds will be implemented to address trash or sediment by 2025.
Objective 6: Improve access to transboundary water quality data.