A preliminary economic study has put an unusually broad price range on the Tijuana River sewage crisis: San Diego County could be losing $125.6 million to $503.5 million in economic output each year. The span is not a final bill. It is the first public estimate from a county-commissioned analysis that is still testing how chronic contamination moves through beaches, households, businesses and public systems.
Consultant ECOnorthwest presented the draft findings to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Over 20 years, the study estimates cumulative losses with a present value of $1.9 billion to $7.9 billion in 2025 dollars. The primary study area contains about 155,265 residents and 47,759 households, according to the board letter. A final report is due in October, when the consultant is expected to refine the assumptions and account for comments on the draft.
Those ranges are wide because the contamination does not follow one economic channel. Beach closures can reduce recreation and visitor spending. Persistent odor and health concerns can affect property decisions, work attendance and school participation. Treatment, testing and emergency response add public costs. Some effects can be expressed in dollars; others can be counted but not reliably priced, and still others remain qualitative. The draft groups those different kinds of evidence rather than pretending they carry equal precision.
The geography also complicates the ledger. Sewage and polluted stormwater cross an international watershed before reaching the river valley and ocean. Winds can move odors and aerosols away from the channel, while beach closures extend along the coast according to water conditions. A restaurant, renter or school does not experience the same exposure as a lifeguard station or a household near the valley. Annual output estimates therefore depend on how the study defines the affected area and translates disruption into spending, income and lost activity.
Public investment is already part of the story. The board letter says governments have committed about $1.3 billion to projects addressing the pollution. That spending is not interchangeable with the consultant's loss estimate: construction and treatment costs describe an attempted remedy, while economic losses describe consequences that may continue before or after infrastructure comes online. Comparing the two without their time horizons would make either figure look more certain than it is.
The county commissioned the work in September 2025 and selected ECOnorthwest to examine tourism, recreation, business activity, property values, tax revenue, health costs, migration and schools. Receiving Tuesday's presentation carried no fiscal effect and did not itself adopt the findings or authorize another project. As of Wednesday morning, the county's Legistar page still labeled the meeting minutes as draft and did not show final action results.
A useful final report will have to show more than a dramatic upper bound. Readers need to see which assumptions produce the low and high cases, which losses overlap, what geographic boundaries were used and how uncertainty changes across the 20-year window. It should also separate conditions measured in the South Bay from effects inferred through published research elsewhere. That transparency will determine whether the estimate can guide budgets, litigation or project priorities.
October's revision will not make a shifting watershed static. Treatment capacity, rainfall, cross-border flows and beach advisories can all change the exposure that the model is trying to value. The draft nevertheless establishes a scale for the conversation: contamination is not confined to water samples or closure signs. Its effects spread through time, public infrastructure and a coastal economy, and the county is now attempting to measure how far.