Isn't this endemic in beaches throught the country? I grew up in NY and one summer job I had was testing beaches for bacteria levels. Most beaches were one rainy day away from being closed down, and they were certainly nowhere near Mexico.

My impression around here (southern Ontario) is that when this happens (high e.coli counts after heavy rain) this is mostly due to runoff from farms and from seagull, goose etc feces, not human sewer overflows. Areas with high waterfowl populations are the worst for it.

> Most beaches were one rainy day away from being closed down, and they were certainly nowhere near Mexico.

I think this is the most salient point -- most beaches are probably fine most of the time, but when you get a big storm or some other event that causes a lot of runoff, the beaches quickly become health hazards. And it doesn't even need to be anything particularly nefarious, even just dumping a bunch of nutrients into the water will cause more things to grow, nasty things included.

I've been to plenty of beaches where after a strong rain, they had signs out on the beach warning about potential sewage runoff, and to avoid swimming in the water.

That's in tfa. The drainage pipes are discharging when there's been no rain at all (and there's not much rain in baja california)

I never knew this until I Googled 'is it OK to surf in the rain?'. In the context of urban beaches. I think the answer was yes, as long as it wasn't the first rain after a dry period, because of runoff from streets etc.

It's not just the street runoff. You have to consider all the stuff in the water basin that is draining into the ocean closest to the beach. For example, many coastal communities might not have a sewer system, using septic tanks and leach fields instead. When it rains enough, some of the runoff gets into there (ever seen pictures of septic tanks improperly secured that pop out of the ground after a rain?) and then moves down to the ocean. Then you also have agricultural/animal runoff if there are farms or ranches in the basin, and potentially industrial runoff if there's any heavy industry in the area too. And even if you have none of these factors, just the simple influx of nutrients can cause things like algal blooms that can be just as bad.

that's crazy, i grew up in Daytona Beach FL until I was 12 and I don't recall anything like this. Ever. Maybe because it rains so much there the runoff is basically clean? Also, i've vacationed up and down the AL and TX coast and have never heard of a beach closed because of bacteria/pollution.

Many older areas have no separate storm sewer system; rain goes into the regular sewers and significant rain will overload the treatment systems and lead to "bypass". Lots of these in the NE.

The entire city of Chicago is like this.

correct, many beaches in new england have been closed this year off and on due to heavy rainfall bringing bacteria from human waste

TJ runoff is at much worse levels, don't have link handy though

Many lakes are regularly closed for bacteria, definitely. Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and Lake Michigan far away from Chicago don't have this issue, but of course they are exceptional in volume.

Yeah you have to go up to Pacific Beach / La Jolla and farther north to avoid the runoff from the Tijuana river. Of course during long dry spells it is not so bad, because there is basically no runoff. Imperial Beach is almost always dirty, though.

You would love Acapulco, where everything drains into ocean

Unfortunately this is a common thing in Mexico (and extremely likely other 3rd world countries)

For example, in Puebla City there is a river (Atlixcayotl) that is literally where all the local industries and waterparks dump their "runoff" (let's be honest, poop and industrially-produced chemicals)

Which is a shame that this happens (even in 1st world countries). So much taking from land that has been living and forming for millions of years (the dirt is alive) and we dump all the poop/industrially-produced chemicals into the rivers.

Not to mention these rivers flow into oceans and the ocean currents do not respect any borders, the fish that are affected. The rivers that touch the soils that grow food (yes your meal was created from these soils)

Sorry I just meant to make a quick comment and it spurred into an entire mini-rant lmao.

I'm not sure if it's really true about this being a Third World issue, leaving aside the fact that Mexico is a well-developed nation with a large economy and outside the technical Cold War definition that nobody uses, I am not sure you can label Mexico "Third World". But the reason I object is there are a large number of American cities that have combined sanitary and storm sewers, including ones that are ridiculously wealthy like San Francisco.

When you see the well developed parts of Mexico you could say that it isn't a third world country... But once you see the poorer parts that quickly changes. The poorest parts of Mexico are very poor, unfortunately a very unequal country. Not to mention the Mexican government is consistently ranked among the most corrupt in the world.

> The poorest parts of Mexico are very poor, unfortunately a very unequal country

By this definition, the USA are a third world country then.

There is certainly a lot of inequality in the USA, but Mexico and other Central and South American nations take it to yet another extreme.

> By this definition, the USA are a third world country then.

Not even close

Now look at Oaxaca and Chiapas where people build their houses from stacked cinderblocks and take home plant clippings for fuel to cook dinner from their job as a gardener.

And more importantly compare the pay and purchasing power and the school systems. I don't think Americans realize how little Mexicans make and how expensive everything is to them except for labor.

None of those are examples of the third world

You just have not seen structural poverty at the state level

all the roads still work, there’s services, access to schools, technology (mines), property rights

So many riches that people of the first world take for granted

Looking at the poorest places, yes, absolutely.

Portland spent well over a billion dollars on the Big Pipe. It helped a lot but there are still sewer overflows a few times a year. Better than after every rain in a city that gets 9 months of rain a year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Big_Pipe

> I am not sure you can label Mexico "Third World".

I’m pretty sure you can say it’s a Third World country

You can say whatever you want of course, but 3rd world define countries that are neither aligned with the West or the East, in the Cold War. China is part of 3rd world countries.

It is called Developing nations today and Mexico is not part of either.