The Tijuana River stinks.
So what could be more fitting than renaming it for Donald Trump?
Turning the sewage-filled Tijuana into the River Trump would be far more than commentary on a corrupt and lawless American dictator. It would be the best way for California and Mexico to win international attention for a critically endangered waterway.
It also would swipe a page from the playbook of Trump, who loves renaming things. He’s declared the Gulf of Mexico to be the Gulf of America (sparking anger and litigation from our neighbors). He is turning the Persian Gulf into the Arabian Gulf (who cares if that might risk war with Iran?). And since Trump doesn’t ask permission before renaming, California and Mexico could justify giving the Tijuana a new moniker without U.S. government sign-off.
Of course, the Tijuana needs more than a name.
The river flows for 120 miles—through Baja California, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into San Diego County and running through Southern California’s largest natural coastland wetland before ending in the Pacific Ocean, near a surf break called “the Sloughs.”
The Tijuana should be a natural treasure, but the river is so polluted that the beaches near its mouth are currently closed. For more than 100 years, trash, toxic materials, and sewage from failing treatment plants on both sides of the border have fouled the river. Tens of thousands of people have been sickened by the pollution, which also sullies the air when the water aerosolizes as sea spray.
The pollution exceeds legal standards in the U.S., Mexico, and California—but the violations haven’t yet inspired a comprehensive cleanup. Indeed, one reason why the Tijuana remains dirty is that it crosses too many jurisdictions—nations, states, localities, and the Kumeyaay Nation—which means no single government is responsible for it.
The Biden and Newsom administrations added some funding to encourage a clean-up. In recent weeks, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin visited the river and promised to tackle the project, too. But there is little reason to trust his promise. The EPA has reduced its staff and authority so rapidly that the agency likely lacks the capacity for a clean-up.
What the EPA pledge does present is an opening to rename the river and make Trump responsible for its condition.
Maybe the occupier of the White House will take the bait. Trump can’t resist talking about the border, and this is a cross-border river. He loves to blast away at American allies, and addressing the Tijuana allows him to take shots at Mexico. Moreover, Trump loves to declare emergencies—and a border emergency here would be an actual crisis, unlike his bogus imaginings of non-existent immigrant “invaders.”
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There are risks to drawing Trump into the Tijuana’s problems. When he has taken previous interest in California waterways, he’s done dangerous things, like emptying water out of a dam at a speed that threatened lives.
Also, naming anything in California or Mexico for Trump, no matter how pointed the intended insult, could trigger a backlash from Trump critics. Something like that happened in 2008 after San Francisco activists proposed a ballot measure to rename a city sewage treatment plant after George W. Bush. The stunt was meant to embarrass Bush, but San Francisco’s progressive electorate rejected the idea overwhelmingly.
Even lending Bush’s name to a building full of crap was too high an honor for that president.
Ultimately, the real-world risks posed by the polluted river are far greater than the downsides of any resulting political drama. “An entire generation of children is growing up in South San Diego County having only experienced polluted beaches,” Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre wrote Biden last year.
If the Tijuana is ever going to get the clean-up it needs, the best bet, right now, is to make the river Trump’s namesake, and thus his problem.
Joe Mathews is a columnist for Zócalo Public Square.