The Tijuana River is among the most polluted rivers in the world. What is the plan to clean it up?

from Deborah BrennanCalMatters

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San Diego leaders are trying to speed up solutions to the Tijuana River’s sewage pollution while investigating the scope of the problem.

Community advocates, health professionals and environmental experts from the Tijuana River Coalition offered updates Thursday on the toxic pollution plaguing south San Diego. And they outlined efforts to fix it, including state legislation, cleanup funding and health and economic impact studies.

“As so many people know, this is one of the longest-standing public health issues facing the United States,” said Courtney Baltiyski, vice president of public policy and advocacy at the YMCA of San Diego County. “It’s a unique problem because it’s on the border between Mexico and the United States and in a place with thriving commerce and extremely unique environmental natural resources. But we know the threat to our communities is dire. And it’s worse than ever.”

Sewage pollution from Mexico is entering the Tijuana River, sickening swimmers and surfers, forcing beach closures and jeopardizing Navy SEAL training in Coronado. The river also emits airborne toxins, including foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide gas, which causes respiratory problems and other illnesses in neighboring communities. That air pollution has worsened in recent months with more hazardous air warnings, speakers said.

County officials make public announcements as soon as air quality drops. In the past, parents received hydrogen sulfide alerts long after their children started school. The county now provides much earlier notice, said Stephanie Sekich, special adviser to San Diego County Superintendent Paloma Aguirre.

“They were getting updates at eight o’clock in the morning,” she said. “That’s not enough when you go to school. You don’t want to get a text update that your child is breathing hydrogen sulfide, so our office is working with the county to make sure that … they get people up at five in the morning and send out alerts.”

San Diego County officials distributed 12,000 air purifiers to households near the Tijuana River, Sekic said. They’re raising funds for more, noting that health officials recommend one in every bedroom and many families near the Tijuana River live in multigenerational homes.

The county allocated $2.5 million for initial work to fix a pollution “hot spot” on Saturn Boulevard in south San Diego County, where contaminated water flows through culverts that aerosolize hydrogen sulfide and other pollutants. Reconfiguring the structure can slow the flow of water and prevent toxins from becoming airborne. Officials are also seeking at least $25 million from the state for that improvement.

A package of state laws aims to tighten air quality standards and free up money to reduce pollution emitted from the river.

State Senator Steve Padilla and state senator Catherine BlakespearDemocrats from San Diego and Encinitas, introduced a hydrogen sulfide gas standards revision bill. That would require the state Office of Environmental Hazard Assessment to develop health-based threshold levels for hydrogen sulfide by January 2030, which could lower the state’s standard for safe levels of the harmful gas. The bill passed the state Senate and awaits a vote in the Assembly.

Theirs related bill would require the state Department of Occupational Safety and Health to set standards that protect the health and safety of employees exposed to transboundary pollution while working outdoors, including lifeguards and park rangers who work near the Tijuana River. Some workers report “headache, fatigue, nausea, and bloody noses after exposure,” Blakespear notes in Senate Committee Hearing last month. The bill awaits a final vote in the Senate Appropriations committee.

Rep. David Alvarez, D-Chula Vista, also offered legislation to accelerate California’s 2024 climate bond spendingProposition 4. Money from the bond measure is earmarked for hot spot remediation on Saturn Boulevard to reduce air pollution from the river.

County officials are conducting an economic impact study on how sewage pollution affects local schools and businesses. An earlier 2023 study by the San Diego County and Regional Chamber of Commerce found that 74 percent of local businesses were negatively affected and 50 percent lost significant revenue, Baltiski said.

The next study will be more comprehensive, Sekic said: “It will go through everything over two years, looking at how many kids missed school? What did that do to school funding? What about property values?”

Health research is also being worked on. Virginia Castellanos, a school nurse at Bayside STEAM Academy, near the mouth of the Tijuana River, said studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that pollution increases lung inflammation and can worsen asthma symptoms in children, while Stanford University study showed that exposure to polluted air can alter immune function.

A San Diego County epidemiologic study will look at how Tijuana River pollution affects residents’ health by retroactively examining toxic exposure through hair, blood and other tissue samples.

Dr. Vi Nguyen, a San Diego pediatrician, has created a network of hundreds of local doctors to diagnose and document pollution-related health problems, including ear infections, allergic rhinitis, skin rashes and gastrointestinal problems such as diarrhea. She also sees a rise in serious illnesses such as kidney disease and drug-resistant urinary tract infections among teenage girls.

“San Diego will not be left behind, the South Bay cannot be forgotten,” Nguyen said. “My patients — especially the little ones at Imperial Beach, San Ysidro, Nestor and Berry Elementary — they deserve better, and that’s why I’m here and I continue to show up as a pediatrician in the community. And really, the state of California and the rest of us Californians need it.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.