Concerned residents. That's it.
Tijuana River Watch was built and is maintained by anonymous residents of South San Diego — Imperial Beach, Coronado, San Ysidro, Chula Vista, and the surrounding communities that have been living with raw sewage fumes for years.
We are not a nonprofit. We are not affiliated with any political party, candidate, law firm, or environmental organization. No one is paying us. No one is directing us. We are not collecting donations.
We built this tool because we were tired of watching officials shrug while our neighborhoods smelled like open sewage — and because we believed that if enough people complained loudly enough, in enough inboxes, something would eventually move.
This site exists for one reason: to make it harder for officials to ignore the Tijuana River sewage crisis than to fix it.
A complaint tool with automated pressure built in.
Every time you file a report, it goes into a live database. The system tracks complaint counts, severity, locations, and health impacts in real time. When thresholds are crossed, automated alert emails go out directly to the officials responsible — elected and appointed, local, state, and federal.
Takes 60 seconds. You describe what you're experiencing — odor intensity, duration, location, health symptoms. No account required.
Your report is stored and counted alongside every other submission. The live stats bar on the homepage updates automatically.
When complaint volume crosses set thresholds, automated email alerts go out to a curated list of officials — from city councilmembers to EPA Region 9, from IBWC to congressional representatives.
Every Monday, a summary of the prior week's complaints — total reports, average severity, top impacted neighborhoods — goes to the full contact list, including advocacy organizations and environmental journalists.
The emails are written to be direct. They include complaint counts, severity averages, affected communities, and specific demands — including the immediate repair of the Saturn Boulevard Pipe Extension. They are not polite requests. They are documented evidence of a public health failure landing directly in official inboxes.
This is not a partisan issue. We treat it that way.
The sewage crisis has been mismanaged by officials from both parties, at every level of government, for decades. We are not here to score political points. We are here to create accountability — regardless of who is in office.
Our contact list includes Democrats and Republicans, city and county officials, state and federal agencies. If you have jurisdiction over this problem, you are on the list. Party affiliation is irrelevant.
We do not endorse candidates. We do not coordinate with campaigns. We have no interest in any election outcome beyond having officials in place who will act on the Tijuana River crisis.
Common questions.
Does filing a complaint actually do anything?
It depends. One complaint does little. Five hundred complaints create a documented record that officials cannot plausibly ignore. The goal of this site is volume and persistence — not individual reports, but an unbroken stream of documented community impact landing in official inboxes over months.
Is my personal information shared with anyone?
It depends on how you report. If you submit through the web form, your name and email are never included in the automated alert emails sent to officials — only anonymous aggregate data is shared (total complaints, average severity, top impacted neighborhoods). If you choose to send an email directly from your own Gmail or mail client, that message comes from your personal account and officials will see your email address. Both options are valid — direct emails from real constituents can actually carry more weight. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
How often should I report?
Every time. If you smell it today, report it today. If you smell it again tomorrow, report it tomorrow. Each submission is a separate data point. Repeated reporting by the same neighborhood over consecutive days builds a far more compelling record than a single high-volume day.
Who is actually running this site?
South Bay residents who prefer to stay anonymous. We're not trying to build a brand. We're trying to fix a sewage problem. If you want to reach us, use the Contact page.
Can I help?
Yes. Share the site. Tell your neighbors. Post it on Nextdoor, in your HOA group, at your kids' school. The more people reporting consistently, the more pressure the system generates. That's the entire mechanism.
The site works when people use it.
File a report every time you're affected. Takes one minute. Creates documented pressure that officials can't ignore indefinitely.
File a Report Now →