With respect, San Diego County Supervisors:
You intend to quantify the contamination in the Tijuana River Valley? Instead, please stop the sewage in the valley from happening again, clean it up and stop sewage dumping in the ocean.
The pollution you plan to measure in the river valley would be long gone if the county maintained the channel of the Tijuana River Valley in the dry season. For decades during rain events, Tijuana surface run-off goes into the river in Mexico and the U.S. and on to the ocean. Pollutants in the river are diluted in the ocean in a few days. Those days of rain events each year are the source of rain/run-off pollution in the U.S. and Mexico.
Out-of-river-channel flooding leaves behind stinky pools of water year-round in the dry season that kills plants and forces neighbors to block the smell by closing their windows. Â
Valley flooding slows down the river so much that there is another bad result: waterborne pollutants (including sewage run-off) are dropped in the river channel instead of the ocean. There are areas of powdered sewage in the dry channel that can blow in the coastal breeze, so the current year-round sewage stink in the valley is not Mexico’s fault. We are doing it to ourselves.
Prevention of flooding
The present presence of sewage all year in the Tijuana Valley can be prevented by the U.S. and by San Diego County by maintaining and repairing the Tijuana River Channel year-round to keep the valley free of stinky ponds.
Note: The trash run-off in rain events is a separate problem that is decades old. The trash in the Tijuana River in Mexico and on Mexico hillsides should be reduced by Mexico so that less trash goes downhill into the U.S. when it rains.
There is pollution every day of the year in the ocean in the U.S. near Imperial Beach and Coronado. It is from a U.S. plant that pipes untreated and partially treated sewage into the ocean through the South Bay Ocean Outfall (SBOO), an 11 foot diameter pipe. The sewage effluent leaves the pipe where a current circles back to shore and onto 10 miles of U.S. beaches in Imperial Beach , the campus of the Navy SEALs, the Silver Strand State Park and Coronado.
The pollution evidence with new testing
Imperial Beach made the news when the new ddPCR (droplet digital polymerase chain reaction) water tests began in May 2022. Imperial Beach has had over 900 days of beach closures. The pre-May 2022 water tests did not show the pollution that has been hitting Imperial Beach hard every day for years. Coronado beaches have been closed too for most of 2024 so far. The county water test results are the evidence that links the U.S. ocean dumping to 10 miles of closed beaches.Â
The EPA’s authorization of the ddPCR tests has revealed the source of the ocean pollution from Imperial Beach to Coronado: ocean dumping from the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant into U.S. waters. Daily beach water tests are shown on a map on sdbeachinfo.com. The proof that the ocean dumping closes the beaches is that the “unsafe to swim” days happen every day of the year now — on days with no rain in the dry season.
What is called “cross-border pollution” is really surface run-off pollution that happens when it rains on both sides of the border. Surface run-off carries chemicals, sewage, and trash to the sea in the U.S. and Mexico.
The swim map on sdbeachinfo.com shows red – not safe for swimming – from the border to Orange County during rain events. Mexico does not cause the rain events. The U.S. does not cause the rain events. For decades, when it rains, there is ocean pollution on both sides of the border from surface run-off.
Imperial Beach, cornered by sewage
Imperial Beach gets sewage pollution on both sides and in two ways — in the water and in the air. Aerosolized sewage spume from the Imperial Beach shore. In the river valley, sewage solids are trucked to the mouth of the Tijuana River. The many tall hills of brown sewage powder close to Imperial Beach put the sewage solids from the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant into the air – air that is breathed in Imperial Beach and in border communities.
When the sewage is fully treated, there will be no ocean dumping and there will be no closed beaches on non-rain days. There will be no sewage dust in the air to be breathed in when it blows in the wind and aerosolized sewage by the ocean will go away. The border area can use the water that will be recovered when the sewage solids are removed. San Diego will finally comply with the Clean Water Act that prohibits ocean dumping. Full sewage treatment can pay for itself and make a profit!
San Diego County Supervisors, our county health agency can make it happen. Fix the cause of the air and water problems that harm residents. Continue sdbeachinfo.com, the county water tests that show the link between our closed beaches, on non-rain days, and U.S. sewage dumping in the ocean.
We in the U.S. are the source of these harmful air and harmful water problems. Each pollution solution will improve the health of the South Bay community. Every public official should make these four steps a priority and tell their constituents about it. Each will have my vote and support.
Judith MacGregor Collins is retired and has a background in environmental policy that includes ocean waters and surface run-off. She administered a National Science Foundation grant on renewable energy in Hawai’i and was the public education envoy for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center on the Chesapeake Bay. She was on the board of C3 – Citizens Coordinate for Century Three in San Diego in late 80s and early 90s when San Diego campaigned for a waiver to the Clean Water Act to permit ocean dumping of sewage effluent from Point Loma.
