13 June 2018 – The EPA hosted a kickoff meeting for two new Border 2020 funded projects aiming to reduce coastal water pollution along the US/Mexico Pacific border. Falk Feddersen and Sarah Giddings presented an introduction to their recently funded Border 2020 Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) project entitled: “Evaluating the 2017 Tijuana River Estuary cross-border wastewater spill sources and coastal impacts.” This work builds off of modeling work started during the CSIDE project, but is heavily focused on the applied aspects of this research, specifically understanding the sources and impacts from a particularly large spill that resulted in extended beach closures in early 2017. We got great feedback from stakeholders (government agencies, public, other research groups, nonprofits, etc.) and also heard more about a complimentary observational project SCCWRP is leading under the same grant program.