San Ysidro

Construction will begin Oct. 21 on a $350,000 border sewage project at Smugglers Gulch that will return 400,000 gallons of raw sewage daily to Tijuana, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) said Wednesday.

Frank Collins said the project is expected to be completed by January and should result in the lifting of the state quarantine on Border Field State Park, which remains closed because of Mexican sewage that flows through the park to the Pacific Ocean. The park has been closed for more than four years.

According to Collins, the sewage plant will be constructed on the U.S. side by the Army Corps of Engineers. Smugglers Gulch is about three miles west of the San Ysidro port of entry and three miles east of the Pacific Ocean. The system will catch Mexican sewage that flows daily into the Tijuana River and the United States and pump it up to Spooners Mesa and into a sump on the Mexican side of the border.

Once on the Mexican side, the sewage will go into the Tijuana conveyance system to a new treatment plant at Punta Bandera, about five miles south of the border along the highway to Rosarito Beach.