Gov. Gavin Newsom, with his oft-times uniquely arrogant and self-righteous governing style, continues to deny the City of Imperial Beach (and its adjacent neighbors to the north – City of Coronado) an in-person audience to fully grasp the breadth of the decades old transboundary sewage issues with Mexico.
Since the Winter of 2017, the local situation has become an undeniable international crisis and textbook example of extreme environmental injustice.
More than 150B gallons of effluent
While the governor often attempts to portray himself as “a man of the people,” he does so at the expense of the 27,000-plus residents in the state’s most southwesterly city, which shares a tumultuously polluted border with Baja California and the now infamous Tijuana River Valley.
Since October 2018, more than 150 billion gallons of Mexican effluent have passed unabated onto American soil and then on the short traverse to the Pacific Ocean and onto local community beaches.
Newsom must know that we are continually suffering the consequences and impacts of this decades-old inequity and still refuses to make the necessary decision to visit this perennial impacted zone of toxic Mexican sewage, including industrial and medical waste, pesticides, polluted stormwater and the human biological waste of much of Tijuana’s 2.2 million population. (Tijuana does not have separated sewer and stormwater systems as in the U.S.)
Why not visit Imperial Beach?
In fact, the governor was in the San Diego area as recently as Aug. 19, meeting with San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria regarding Tropical Storm Hilary regional preparations
But did he even set aside an hour or two to visit this long-struggling beach community and display some decisive leadership – leadership he hopes to carry him to a White House nomination in 2028? Bureaucratic crickets.
While we recognize this situation is certainly complex and even Sisyphean in scope, we have no higher power in this state to appeal to for immediate help and resolve than the governor’s office.
Thousands of pleas have been made, many letters penned, supplications given and yet nothing but more indecisive cricket chirps from the Halls of Sacramento.
U.S. Sen. Padilla has sought more money
Recently, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla’s office recommended an additional $350 million be allocated to this pending EPA effort. However, this amount does not include any specific wastewater reclamation infrastructure monies to reduce the overall amount of secondarily treated effluent being planned (up to 100 million gallons daily) to be transported through the South Bay Ocean Outfall and into the local Ocean waters.
Finally, the Mayor of Imperial Beach – Paloma Aguirre, along with the full City Council continues to request that the governor and his team pay a visit to our small, beachfront community and afford himself the clear opportunity to openly demonstrate the core values that he claims to embody – that of representing all the people of the great State of California.
Imperial Beach’s request is sincere, yet uncompromising!
Respectfully,
Mitchell D. McKay is a California native since 1958 and an Imperial Beach resident since 1985. McKay says this Op-Ed is in his personal capacity, and does not represent the City of Imperial Beach.
