Coronado resident Barry Renker has debated leaving his home in the Cays because of Tijuana sewage oozing into Coronado waters, the exact reason he left Imperial Beach a decade ago.
Sandy Hoppe grew up swimming at Coronado beaches ever since her family moved to the island in 1965 – years before the Coronado Bridge was even constructed. This year, she couldn’t hold a paddle-out celebration of life for her brother because the bacteria levels in the water were too high.
Katherine Ellis can’t rent out her condo at the Coronado Shores because of the red flags going up and down the beach, warning of the dangers of an idyllic vacation swim.
The crisis
Members of the Tijuana River Coalition, a group that’s been fighting for change along with local political leaders, recently called for greater accountability, increased funding and more transparency in U.S.-Mexico efforts to address the public health threat and the pollution of local beaches.
Imperial Beach, the community closest to the Tijuana border, has carried the brunt of the health and environmental issues on the United States side for almost a century. There, the crisis is palpable, in the air, in the water and even in the white sands ravaged by sewage and wastewater.
For decades, infrastructure failures in Mexico have funneled billions of gallons of raw sewage, waste and viruses across the border into the Pacific Ocean, creating an environmental and public health catastrophe for south San Diego. But while politicians at the local, state, federal and international levels debate treaties and agreements like Minute 333, a binational agreement signed by the United States and Mexico last December, local residents continue to have to go through year-long beach closures and endure sickness in their hometowns.
Coronado has been able to avoid some of what Imperial Beach goes through, but the regularity of beach closures on the island has been hard to ignore.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2025 community assessment noted that about 70% of surveyed households in the Tijuana River Valley region reported health symptoms that were associated with sewage exposure.
Not only was the water proving to be harmful, “airborne exposure through sewage derived pathogens has become increasingly recognized as a public health concern in the region,” according to research published in the National Library of Medicine.
The publication also noted a growing concern with “potential long‐term health consequences associated with chronic sewage exposure.”
The locals
Renker, 73, has lived on the island more than 30 years in the Village and in the Cays, plus a little over a year in Imperial Beach.
“My wife was getting pretty frustrated with the smell,” Renker told The Coronado News. “So then we came up here to the Cays.” But in the last few years, he found that he couldn’t enjoy the Silver Strand beach by the Cays either because of the effluent.
You just bought this place for a lot of money, and you’re right down here on the water, and you can’t even get in the water?
Coronado Cays resident Barry Renker
“You just bought this place for a lot of money, and you’re right down here on the water, and you can’t even get in the water?” Renker asked rhetorically.
In 2022, records show that San Diego county switched to a new testing protocol that yielded much faster and more accurate results. Beaches in Coronado started closing more frequently after that.
The sewage plume had pushed higher up and oftentime, especially during rainy periods, started affecting the city that always seemed to be just far enough away to avoid the contamination from the bordering country.
From 2023 to 2024, Coronado beaches were closed for 169 days, according to San Diego County’s Beach and Bay Program. In 2025, Coronado had unsafe water quality 256 days out of the year, according to Emerald Keepers, a local environmental nonprofit.
Coronado City Council members declared a local state of emergency at the beginning of 2025.
In June this year, Hoppe watched the beach closures report every single day, hoping for an opening where the waters were clean enough for her paddle-out. Her brother passed away at the beginning of the year.
“We don’t want people to have to worry about getting sick,” Hoppe explained. So, at the last minute, they moved the vigil over to Glorietta Bay.
Hoppe, 74, and her husband moved off the island at the end of July, hoping for one last swim before leaving their home of decades – but they couldn’t.
It was kind of sad. It has definitely changed … Locals, we don’t say ‘Oh, let’s go to the beach’ as much as we used to.
Sandy Hoppe
“It was kind of sad,” Hoppe said. “It has definitely changed … Locals, we don’t say ‘Oh, let’s go to the beach’ as much as we used to.”
She grew up boogie boarding in the waters and her brothers were all surfers, so going in the ocean was something she always did. She said she wouldn’t really walk on the beach anymore either, instead staying on boardwalks and sidewalks because she doesn’t want contact with the polluted sand.
“If the water gets a clean bill of health, you know, it’s still in the sand from a day or two before,” Hoppe said.
Renker walks and bikes on the Strand every day and said that he ran into a family recently at the Silver Strand beach who didn’t realize how bad the sewage problem was.
There was a water closure that day on the Strand and he suggested trying Coronado city beaches instead since it was farther north. They told Renker that they had already checked the beach in Coronado and it was also closed that day.
“It’s just sad … Look at what it’s doing to our beautiful ocean,” Renker said. “Fish are living there and all kinds of water life.”
He said he feels fortunate that the air he’s breathing is still clean and the Cays is still not like Imperial Beach, but he and his wife have contemplated moving because of the crisis.
Ellis had a similar experience where she felt like it’s been difficult to find a renter for her Coronado Shores condo because the beach right across the street is inaccessible – even as one can gaze at it longingly from the apartment window.
Ellis lives in Del Mar but bought her condo about four years ago for short- and long-term rentals.
Her previous tenant stayed for more than two years before moving out, telling her he couldn’t justify paying for a coastal condo when he and his family couldn’t even step into the water.
No one wants to rent it because why should they? They can’t even use the beach which is right in front.
Katherine Ellis
“No one wants to rent it because why should they? They can’t even use the beach which is right in front,” Ellis said.
While the San Diego Regional Chamber has not quantified the economic impact, it put out a report on the sewage problem in March urging action that enhances “economic resilience and improves the overall quality of life for the communities and businesses across the San Diego-Tijuana binational region.”
