The US has promised to clean up the Tijuana River. Will California follow suit?

from Deborah BrennanCalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Subscribe to your newsletters.

This article is also available in English. Read it here.

As sewage from the Tijuana River has polluted neighborhoods in southern San Diego County, the federal government has pledged $667 million to clean it up.

Now, local lawmakers are calling on California to step up its fight against transboundary pollution, with one this week introducing a bill to overhaul air quality standards tied to harmful gases from the river.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear held a joint hearing Thursday in San Diego of the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality and the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials to explore how the state can help solve the problem.

“California has long been a national leader in environmental management and policy development,” Blakespear said at the hearing. “But what is happening in the Tijuana River Valley is an international environmental disaster that is undermining everything that California stands for.”

The audience at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla brought together scientists and civic leaders to discuss how damaged infrastructure, industrial waste and decades of neglect created the ecological disaster and what is needed to fix it.

“Because of its international nature, we know the federal government has to take the initiative,” Blakespear said. “Still, state and local governments can do a lot.”

After decades of stagnation, action against Tijuana River pollution is accelerating. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Monday a a new agreement with Mexico for wastewater infrastructure planning that allows for future population growth in Tijuana.

On Wednesday, state Sen. Steve Padilla introduced a bill to update state rules on hydrogen sulfide, a noxious, rotten-egg-smelling gas produced by river sewage. Residents in the area complain of headaches, nausea and other discomforts when hydrogen sulfide reaches high concentrations. The bill would require the California Air Resources Board to review the rule, which has been in place for half a century, and adjust it if necessary.

State lawmakers are also seeking to improve conditions for lifeguards and other workers exposed to pollution and hold American companies accountable for their role in polluting the river. County officials will conduct an extensive health study to measure the effects of pollution in the Tijuana River and are developing plans to eliminate a pollution hot spot in Imperial Beach.

Chronic and continuous pollution

Sewage spills in southern San Diego County became commonplace in the early 2000s, grossing out beachgoers and surfers at local beaches. The old treatment plants subsequently failed, dumping hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the ocean. Last year, Scripps researchers found that the river was harming nearby communities by releasing chemicals into the air, such as hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like rotten eggs.

“Sewage flowing along the coast of San Diego County is poisoning our air and water, harming public health, closing beaches and killing marine life,” Blakespear said.

San Diego officials successfully pushed for federal investment to upgrade aging wastewater treatment plants. They also introduced faster water quality tests and surveyed residents to understand the health problems they faced.

Paula Stigler Granados, a professor of public health at San Diego State University, said surveys of people living near the Tijuana River found “scarier things”: 45 percent had health problems, 63 percent said pollution interfered with their work or school, and 94 percent of respondents reported sewage odors at home.

“Kids wake up sick in the middle of the night,” he said. “It’s continuous and chronic exposure, not a one-time event.”

Water samples revealed industrial chemicals, methamphetamine, fentanyl, restricted pesticides, pharmaceuticals and sulfur compounds causing the unpleasant odor, he said.

“This is an absolute public health emergency,” Stigler Granados said. “I think this is the biggest environmental crisis we have in the country right now.”

This sense of urgency is not universal. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected requests from San Diego officials to declared a state of emergency on the problem of border pollution, claiming that “it would mean nothing.

Over the past two years, state Sen. Steve Padilla has introduced bills to fund wastewater treatment improvements, limit landfill construction in the Tijuana River Valley and require California companies to report waste discharges that affect the state’s water quality. However, these bills failed. Padilla said the problem is being overlooked in this border area with low-income and working-class populations.

“This is one of the most unique and acute environmental crises in all of North America,” Padilla said. “It’s underrated simply because of where it’s happening.”

Solutions for the Tijuana River

This year, the United States overhauled the deteriorating South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant and expanded its capacity from 25 million to 35 million gallons of wastewater per day. In April, Mexico repaired its Punta Bandera plant near the border, reducing wastewater flows to the ocean.

But Imperial Beach’s shoreline has been closed for three years, and residents still complain of headaches, nausea, eye irritation and breathing problems caused by the air pollution. This problem worsens at a time known as critical point on Saturn Blvd. in Imperial Beach, where a flood control drain turns sewage-polluted water into foam, spreading pollutants into the air.

“When the water is polluted, you can close the beach,” said Kim Prater, an atmospheric chemist at Scripps who identifies toxins in the air. “But you can’t stop people from breathing.”

Community members feel forgotten by state leaders as they face chronic air pollution and years of beach closures due to contaminated sewage from the Tijuana River, said Serge Dedina, executive director of the environmental organization WildCoast and former mayor of Imperial Beach.

“They’re saying, ‘Why doesn’t California care about us?’” Dedina said.

As federal officials plan an expansion of the International Wastewater Treatment Plant in South Bay, which will increase its capacity to 50 million gallons per day, local and state leaders have their own plan of action.

One of Aguirre’s top priorities is removing the sewer at the critical point on Saturn Blvd. which cause air pollution.

“It’s something that’s low-hanging fruit that the federal government doesn’t need to fix,” Aguirre said.

He hopes to get funding for that project from Proposition 4, the state environmental bond that voters approved earlier this year. This program allocates 50 million dollars to cleaning up degraded waterways such as the Tijuana River and Nova River, which flow into the Salton Sea.

The county is also planning a health study that will include physiological measurements to determine the health effects of Tijuana River pollution.

“We’re working on how to take real, robust medical data and follow a group of people living in this environment so we can understand what’s going on in their bodies,” Aguirre said. “What happens to the children and the elderly? What is in their blood?”

San Diego County has distributed about 10,000 home air purifiers to homes near the Tijuana River, but Aguirre wants to provide devices to all 40,000 homes in the affected area.

Dedina said his organization removes waste tires that are exported to Mexico and returned to the Tijuana River Valley.

“My lesson here is that we have to stop the sludge, the tires, the trash, the toxic waste, the sewage,” he said.

In addition to his bill to update hydrogen sulfide standards, Padilla said he is exploring legislation to regulate pollution generated by California companies that operate through maquiladoras in Mexico. He wants to work with Mexico to pressure them to crack down on American companies that are licensed to operate here in California.

Blakespear said he wants to protect first responders and other public workers exposed to pollution.

Whether the solution is creating environmental standards for international companies or funding expensive infrastructure, lawmakers recognize that the binational nature of the problem makes it difficult to solve.

“The complexity of this being an international and federal issue has increased the difficulty of who should act,” Blakespear said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under license Creative Commons Attribution/Attribution-Noncommercial.