Gavin Newsom and Joe Biden each got a letter from Coronado High School kids early this month, pleading for help to stop the contamination of San Diego County beaches with sewage from Tijuana.
“We need you to declare a state of emergency” are the pleas from Coronado’s youth that made their way first to the California State Capitol and then to the White House immediately following the new year.
In the final months of 2023, Coronado High School student members of the Stop the Sewage Club were busy writing, collecting signatures and finalizing letters to Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden in the wake of another year of a decades-long sewage crisis.
This advocacy work, which comes from the youngest voices raising awareness about the sewage pollution in Coronado, was brainstormed following the club’s key officers’ summer participation in local beach protests.
“This crisis is destroying water quality, threatening public safety, tourism, and local businesses,” says the letter from Stop the Sewage, a club at the high school.
In September, CHS Stop the Sewage Club President Daniel Vinegrad, said the group would work to help fast-track additional funding efforts to solve a crisis that has existed for nearly 100 years.
This community pressure follows The Coronado News’ five-part series last year that examined a history of broken promises by U.S. and Mexican officials that resulted in a public health menace and closed shorelines in Coronado and Imperial Beach.
Promises, Promises: A documentary on the Tijuana sewage crisis
The sewage contamination continues to cause widespread illnesses on both sides of the border, including sickness among the U.S. Border Patrol Agents and Navy SEALs, the newspaper found.
New school club on campus
As a new school year began in 2023, Vinegrad filed paperwork for on-campus operations, recruited interested members with the support of local activists and co-founders of Stop the Sewage.org and kicked off the first group meeting on Sept. 28.
Local women form environmental group to end sewage on beaches
Since then, the Coronado High School sophomore and up to 15 student members, including his sister Eva Vinegrad, have been reaching out to government officials who might help.
‘We, the students of Coronado High School’
In the first letter addressed to Newsom’s office on Jan. 2, written by Stop the Sewage Club Vice President Sean Wilbur, the club asks for the declaration of a state of emergency.
“We, the students of Coronado High School, are deeply concerned about the environmental and public health crisis unfolding on the San Diego coastline,” says the letter.
“This crisis is destroying water quality, threatening public safety, tourism, and local businesses. The pollution negatively impacts our mental and physical health. We believe declaring a state of emergency is imperative to swiftly address this issue, allocate necessary resources, and prevent further harm to your constituents and environment,” the letter continues.
The remainder of the letter to Newsom amplifies the students’ approach to the crisis.
“The students at CHS are all striving towards the goal of a stronger future for our planet, and we need your help to fulfill this goal. Governor Newsom, we have faith in your leadership. Please act decisively to protect our environment and community. We await your response.”
The weekend of Jan. 6, the club sent the Biden administration a second letter similar to their letter to Newsom.
“The Stop the Sewage club will also write to members of Congress asking to ask for additional funding and urgency over the matter,” said Vinegrad.
Calls for funding continue
Newsom, who stopped short of declaring a state of emergency in October, did not personally respond to the students.
Biden pushing for $310 million more to fix coastal sewage crisis
“A state proclamation of emergency is not necessary to trigger a federal emergency declaration to support the federal response to this crisis,” his Legal Affairs Secretary David Sapp wrote on Oct. 10.
However, efforts to bring this issue to the forefront continue among local activists and elected officials.
Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey and Councilmember John Duncan, who are part of a subcommittee created last year to lead the campaign to address Tijuana sewage, traveled to Washington D.C. on Jan. 7 to pursue funding for the cross-border sewage pollution from members of Congress.
Mayor Bailey and Councilman Duncan head to Washington D.C. for sewage crisis
Apart from participating in local beach cleanups, the STS club led local youth in a community “Candlelight Gathering To Heal Our Coast” in Imperial Beach.
“I enjoyed having everyone come together in support of stopping the sewage,” said Vinegrad. “It’s significant that we had Mar Vista High School come together to help bring more attention to the issue. It was also nice to see the mayor of IB (Paloma Aguirre) there and how happy she was that she had the support of students.”
San Antonio de los Buenos moves forward
In a visit to Coronado, Rep. Scott Peters told The Coronado News that activism by locals, specifically recurring letter-writing efforts by South Bay and Coronado students, will make this crisis a top priority in Congress.
‘Dear Mr. President, We need your help’
Meanwhile Mexico held a groundbreaking ceremony on Jan. 11 that included the participation of Ken Salazar, US Ambassador to Mexico, and Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Avila Olmeda regarding “the project design, construction, and rehabilitation of the San Antonio de los Buenos (SAB) Treatment plant,” according to reports from The United States Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission.
“We know that Mexico must also do its part. Much of their infrastructure has also fallen into disrepair,” said the statement by Peters during a call for funding to combat cross-border wastewater pollution on the House floor that same day. “And just today they are breaking ground on replacing the wastewater treatment plant on their side of the border. We should be embarrassed – EMBARRASSED – that Mexico is acting with more urgency than we are.”
The treatment plant project is scheduled for completion by September of this year at an approximate cost of $33.3 million, a fraction of the $144 million total project costs found in Minute 328, a binational agreement between the United States and Mexico, that will be fully funded by Mexico. U.S. and Mexican officials have said rehabilitation work will reduce the amount of untreated wastewater that has poured into the Pacific Ocean and closed beaches. The new SAB plant is expected to treat 18 million gallons per day.
“This is an urgent public health, business, and national security disaster,” added Peters about funds to fix and expand the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (SBIWTP) in San Ysidro. “The more we delay in addressing cross-border pollution, the more costly and difficult it will be to fix in the future.”
Future plans for the school club
In the meantime, Vinegrad said Stop the Sewage will continue pushing for help from California’s governor.
“Although he claims the sewage crisis is a federal issue, Newsom should help us at the federal level by any means possible, considering it affects his state and people,” said Vinegrad.
