Photo: Un Mar de Colores
Tijuana River Makes America’s Most Endangered Rivers List for Second Consecutive Year in 2025
On Wednesday morning, April 16, the Surfrider Foundation and Un Mar de Colores hosted a press conference to announce that the Tijuana River has been officially designated one of America’s top ten Most Endangered Rivers of 2025, appearing on the list for the second consecutive year. The designation was made by American Rivers, a national environmental advocacy organization focused on protecting and promoting the health of rivers in the United States. Each year, American Rivers releases a list of the Most Endangered Rivers in America to shine a spotlight on threats to clean water and to drive advocacy.
Learn more about the designation in this LA Times article and why the Surfrider Foundation and our partners at Un Mar de Colores nominated the Tijuana River for this designation in this short video.
Video: Un Mar de Colores
Surfrider, Un Mar de Colores, and our coalition partners hosted a press conference to generate more media and public awareness. The press conference took place at a ranch in the Tijuana River Valley about 200 yards away from the “hotspot” where dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide gas have been detected. This announcement comes at a time when the environmental catastrophe in the Tijuana River Watershed and resulting public health crisis continue to worsen. Since Jan. 1st of this year, nearly 10 billion gallons of contaminated water have flowed through the river into the Pacific Ocean in Imperial Beach. The southernmost beach in San Diego County has been closed for over 1200 consecutive days and counting. The water is now so inundated with pollution that air quality is also impaired. Emerging data has revealed that Hydrogen Sulfide gas is being released from contaminated water when agitated at unsafe levels for human health through a process called aerosolization. The hotspot for aerosolized gasses is located in a residential neighborhood with several schools in the vicinity. People are getting sick by simply breathing in the air, especially at night during sleeping hours, but also while standing in their front yards, doing their jobs, and going to class.
Ramon Chairez, Director of Education and Environmental Advocacy at Un Mar de Colores, kicked off the press conference with the big announcement, “We're here today to announce that for the second Year in a row, our Tijuana river has been named on one of America's Most Endangered River list by American Rivers. The river ranks number two this year, up from number nine from last year. This is not a badge of honor. This is a warning, a cry for help, and a call for urgent action. The Tijuana river, its estuary, and the Pacific Ocean are more than just bodies of water. They are the lifeblood of this region. These interconnected ecosystems support an incredibly diverse and incredible diversity of wildlife, protect our communities from flooding, provide recreational spaces for families, and hold deep cultural, historical, and spiritual significance for many who call this region home. Our health, our economy, and our way of life are inextricably tied to the health of these waters.” He went on to explain, “A mix of heavy metals, chemicals, industrial waste, and unknown contaminants that are poisoning our estuary, harming wildlife, and impacting fragile wetlands and marine habitats . . . We cannot allow this environmental and public health disaster to continue. Today, we are calling on the Trump administration to recognize the urgency of this crisis and to declare a federal state of emergency in the Tijuana River Valley. Our community deserves clean water, safe air, and healthy beaches. Our region deserves bold, immediate action. The time to act is now.”
Bobby Wallace, of the Barona Band of Mission Indians added, “My people have been here for 12,000 or so years. Our territory boundaries, where we traveled is up by the San Luis Rey River, all the way down to Ensenada, even as far as San Quentin, all the way to the desert. These rivers have meant a lot to us throughout history. We use them to travel. We use them to make baskets. We were hunters and gatherers. And this right here, I look at this river and it's really brown and really dirty, but what I really see is red because this river is bleeding and it's bleeding into the ocean, which is a bigger water. And it's traveling up and going inside the Bay. And it's going to keep traveling. And as the expansion of people keeps happening, it's going to get worse and worse.”
Photo: Joana Guerra, Surfrider Foundation
Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre stated, “We need our governor and our president to take immediate action to divert and treat the river. It's not rocket science. The federal government has been able to build a wall across the floodplain without any environmental review, waiving all laws necessary and they built it in less than nine months with unlimited resources. The exact same thing could be done to divert and treat the river. The International Wastewater Treatment Plant has geographical capacity to expand it up to 100 million gallons of treatment per day. We should be diverting the river and treating it there. I call upon our governor and our president to take immediate action because if this were happening anywhere else in the nation, especially in affluent communities, we would have had interventions already . . . But we are a workforce community that has been forgotten for far too long. We need to take action now.”
Kristan Culbert, Associate Director of California River Conservation at American Rivers, added “When American Rivers selects rivers for our campaign, we review nominations from local partners and individuals from across the country. We choose the rivers based on its significance, significance to people and wildlife, the magnitude of the threat to the river and communities, and most importantly, whether or not there is a point within the next year that the public can influence. By including the Tijuana river on our most Endangered Rivers list for the second year in a row, we continue to shine a national spotlight on this ongoing environmental and public health crisis.”
Dr. Paula Stigler Granados, from San Diego State University’s School of Public Health, shared preliminary results from an ongoing community survey, “Of the almost 400 people that have so far filled out the survey, 77% said they've experienced upper respiratory symptoms . . . 25% had lower respiratory symptoms . . . 41% had diarrhea . . . 77% of people had headaches and difficulty concentrating, 47%, trouble sleeping. These are serious health symptoms that are affecting people on a daily basis . . . but [they are] not necessarily reporting them.”
Dr. Kimberly Prather from University of California, San Diego’s Scripts Institution of Oceanography added, “The levels that we found of hydrogen sulfide gas, which is the smelly smell, the porta potty smell, the levels were in Nestor, in the community, 4,000 times higher than typical urban levels . . . It's a well known toxic gas. But the point I want to make is it's not the only gas. It's an indicator that you have [others] . . . Science is under siege right now. We're under attack. People are trying to say science doesn't matter, but in this case, science backs the voices. It validates the voices of the community. So we gotta keep going.”
Phillip Musegaas, Executive Director of San Diego Coastkeeper, stated “Don't think about this as a river, but think about it as an open sewer, unfortunately, because right now that is what this is. We have communities of people living here trying to run their businesses, to raise their children next to an open sewer that's not just sewage, but it's toxic chemicals, industrial chemicals that are the byproducts of manufacturing just across the border from the maquiladoras that operate in Tijuana . . .We're finding a number of different industrial chemicals, everything from pesticides to paint thinner. We found over two dozen different industrial chemicals, probably 10 different kinds of pesticides, benzene, toluene, acetone. If you look these things up, many of them are carcinogenic. Several of them aren't even allowed to be used in the US anymore. And so we have this steady flow of sewage, of toxic chemicals coming through the river channel, becoming aerosolized, and have the communities here breathing it in.”
Dr. Matt Dickson, owner and doctor at South Bay Urgent Care, shared, “[When there are] high levels of hydrogen sulfide gas, it's like clockwork. In the afternoon we see kids with wheezing, with headaches, with nausea. We're seeing teenagers and 10 year olds with migraine headaches. It just doesn't happen normally. Elderly people with chronic lung conditions, we see them on a daily basis. And it's very frustrating as a doctor that we can help people, we can treat their headache, we can treat their breathing problems, but they walk right back or drive right back to their home. And again at night they're exposed to these very high levels of toxins. . . . And it's not just the people that live here, it's the people that work here . . . Our Navy Seals are getting sick. It's our border patrol, it's our lifeguards. We're failing to protect the people that protect us. That's a travesty.”
Photo: Joana Guerra, Surfrider Foundation
Sarah Davidson, Clean Border Water Now manager at Surfrider Foundation, closed out the press conference by sharing “The Tijuana river made the most endangered rivers list for the second consecutive year not only because of this grim reality, but because of the opportunity it offers all of us to come together to set aside our political differences, overcome our divisions, and act with urgency. The river crosses through wildly varied terrain, jumps in elevation, and an international border. It bridges land and sea, freshwater and saltwater systems, past and present cultures, and numerous socio political barriers. It is a symbol of our interconnectedness and what is possible through collective action, strategic advocacy and care for one another. There is no better time to address this public health and environmental crisis than right now.”
The designation of the Tijuana River as endangered sounds the alarm across the country and offers all of us, whether directly or indirectly impacted, an opportunity to join the effort to address this public health and environmental justice emergency. It will take all of us to build the social movement required to heal our river, our coast, and our communities. Sign our petition calling on the Trump administration to declare a state of emergency to provide the interagency coordination, funding, and resources needed to address this crisis and provide relief to the affected communities.