Tijuana River Pollution Reaches Crisis Point in San Diego County, Scientists Warn
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From KQED in San Francisco, this is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Fifty million gallons of untreated sewage and industrial chemicals flow from Mexico to Imperial Beach in San Diego County every day. It's been a longtime problem, but reached new levels of concern recently when researchers connected the water pollution to worsening air quality, leading to headaches, skin infections, among other things.

We look at why the sewage and trash have been so hard to address and why solutions could be years away. Join us. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. San Diego's Imperial Beach shoreline at the border with Mexico has drawn tourists and big wave surfers for decades.

It's where visitors, as the Times' Samyakar Lamangla writes, built intricate sandcastles and licked ice cream cones, and locals walked their dogs on the warm sand and enjoyed the sea breeze and pints of beer on outdoor patios.

But today, that shoreline is closed and has been for more than three years, as sewage and trash from Tijuana have polluted the waters and caused serious health problems. This hour, we learn how the situation in I.B. has become one of the nation's worst environmental issues. Do you live in or near Imperial Beach or visit it? Tell us about it.

Joining me first is the mayor of Imperial Beach, Paloma Aguirre. Mayor Aguirre, so glad to have you with us. Thank you for having me, Mina. So help me understand what you're living with on a daily basis because of the water and air pollution there. It's a heartbreaking situation. As you mentioned, our beach has been closed for more than 1,200 consecutive days. Many of us, you know, our identity is based on our close proximity to the ocean and the beach. Many of us surf.

And the fact that we cannot do that and not only not, you know, safely recreate doing the thing that we love the most, but also the economic impact of having our beaches closed for this long is really bad to our small mom and pop shops. It has a tremendous effect economically, regionally.

But most concerningly for me is or are the health impacts that are stemming from the pollution from the river because it's not just an issue that impacts our coast, but it's also impacting our air at the source. The Tijuana River flows through many different communities before it makes its way west to Imperial Beach and the shoreline.

And all of those people are being exposed to very high levels of hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases and bacteria, viruses, parasites, PFAS, and other types of pollution that has very serious health consequences. So in my opinion, I would say it's the biggest environmental and public health emergency in the Western Hemisphere, not just in the nation. Wow. Mayor-

What specific health effects have you heard about from residents or even experienced yourself?

Yeah, so sadly, I know of people that have been hospitalized more than once. I myself have had to go to the ER because of chest pains and shortness of breath. And those are all symptoms that are consistent with exposure to hydrogen sulfide. I know families with young children that are extremely concerned that have to, on days when it's really bad,

the hydrogen sulfide that is, the rotten egg smell, that's what it smells like on certain nights, have to put their kids to sleep in masks because they're worried about their kids' health. I've spoken to elderly constituents that are extremely concerned because they have

COPD, for example. We've seen an increase of gastrointestinal illnesses, upper respiratory ailments in our local health clinics. It is the reason why I traveled to D.C. and asked the CDC to come and do a health assessment to better understand what's going on because the empirical evidence from four different academic institutions

institutions have been researching soil, water, and air samples. And they're finding, like I said, very concerning levels of pollution in the air and the water and the soil. And the health consequences are extremely concerning. And nobody's really doing a comprehensive epidemiological study to better understand how vast and how severe the health impacts are from this pollution.

President Trump's environmental secretary, Lee Zeldin, visited Imperial Beach in April. How did that go, Mayor? Did he pledge to address this?

Yes, I asked him to come even before he was appointed. I asked him to come after he was appointed and finally he did come and visit the region. We toured the area. We toured the International Wastewater Treatment Plant, one of the tributaries that feeds into the river and the point of entry where the river crosses the border itself.

We explained how severe the health impacts, the mental health impact, the anxiety of our constituents is. And he was very frank. He said he's never smelled anything like this or seen anything like this. So

He has committed to expediting the fixes at the treatment plant. And just for your audience awareness, the International Wastewater Treatment Plant is located on the U.S. side, but treats 100% sewage from Mexico through a binational treaty agreement.

but it is insufficient. It is slated to be expanded and doubled in its capacity, but even when it is doubled in capacity, it still will not address the main source of pollution, which is the Tijuana River itself. The Tijuana River is what's carrying not just residential wastewater, untreated sewage, but also industrial waste, and that's what's the most concerning thing to me. What would you like to see from the county?

I would like to see the county to invest more resources as the health authority of the county, of all 18 jurisdictions within the county of San Diego. We should see epidemiological studies being conducted. We should see an economic impact study to better understand how our businesses are being impacted by the beach closures. We need to have

you know, better air filtration and systems for not just schools in close proximity to the hotspots, but also for daycares. We have at least three schools in less than half a mile from one of the most severe hotspots of toxic gases emanating from the river. We also need to make sure that we remove that hotspot. There's simple infrastructure solutions that could address

immediately reduce the impacts from that hotspot. But at the end of the day, what we really need is a state of emergency declaration from our governor and our president so that we can expedite diversion and treatment of the river itself. That's the main source of pollution to us. Mayor, I understand you're a surfer. When's the last time you were able to surf the waves at Imperial Beach?

September 21st, 2021. Wow. You remember the month? Oh, absolutely. I have to travel about 35 minutes to the closest beach where it's decent enough to surf. And I can't do that on a daily basis, which is really unfortunate. But it's not about me. It's about the community, right? We're about past Memorial Day and

We're coming up to 4th of July and every year, every summer, our beaches are closed. We see less and less visitors and it's just heartbreaking. Yeah. You talked about how it's affecting the identity. How is it affecting the culture or feel of IB to have the beach closed? Well, just imagine...

Um, not feeling safe in your own home, not feeling safe in your own bed. There's been times when, uh, we wake up at night and it's, you know, especially over the summer during hot days and you want to have your windows open or your portable AC on, and you can't have that because, uh, you're breathing in what's comparable to being inside a porta potty. Um,

You know, nobody should live in these conditions. And, you know, those who have been able to leave have and those who can't, which is the vast majority because we're a workforce community, are having to just adapt to this. And really, you don't really adapt. It's a constant state of anxiety of, you know, of feeling unsafe in your own home.

And you talked about the economic impact. So have you seen business closures? Have you seen real estate values decrease? Yeah, I have met with realtors who they've been reporting to me. They've never seen as many listings as they have in these last few years.

Businesses have shuttered. It's hard to say exactly if it's the beach closures that have caused that. That's why I want to see an economic impact study be conducted by the county. It's why I've submitted to the county my five-point plan already to be included in this fiscal year. We need to better understand that so we can have specific recommendations for

to bring to our state and federal officials so that we can start to tackle that. So yeah, our economy is being impacted. We certainly have seen a reduction in visitors during the summer days in the way we quantify visitors at the beach. So yeah, we are seeing an economic impact, not just in Imperial Beach, but regionally.

What keeps you committed to being there despite the incredible pollution challenges you're dealing with? Well, if not me, who? If not now, when? And that's how I see it. I've been working on the sewage issue since 2005. The first time I ever learned about it was through my predecessor, the former mayor of IB, Serge Zadina. He's a founder of Wild Coast, and he's been at this for as long, if not longer, and he

He told me back then when I first learned about this, I didn't know that I was surfing one of the most polluted beaches in America and that I could have fallen deathly ill from surfing without knowing polluted water. So I've seen how we've been left behind as a community and ignored for so many years and

And, you know, like I said, we're a workforce community, but we deserve the exact same things and amenities and benefits and quality of life of any other city. I do see a difference here. If this were happening in Carmel-by-the-Sea or in La Jolla, this would have been addressed a long time ago.

Uh, so I, I want to continue to fight. I have been fighting and I won't stop fighting until we have our air clean and our water clean. You say it's a workforce community. What is the character of the community at Imperial beach? Oh, it's really great. Uh, it's,

very laid back, you know, very family friendly community. Our streets are very pedestrian and bike friendly. We have a beautiful estuary to the south of us, the Tijuana Estuary, which is home to over 300 bird species. We have obviously the beach, the San Diego Bay to the northeast.

Uh, we have, uh, recreational trails where you can just go and, uh, take in nature, uh, from a bench. It's beautiful. And our parks, our amenities are really great. Um, but it's, it's, it's, um, it just, like I said, it, it really is, um, discouraging to have our beaches closed and something that we've all, uh, loved and, and, and, and built our, our life around, which is our beaches. Just.

Gone. Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. We'll have more about the situation in Imperial Beach after the break. Stay with us, listeners. This is Forum. I'm Nina Kim.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Imperial Beach at San Diego County's border with Mexico is now the center of one of the nation's worst environmental disasters, writes the Times' Soumya Karlamangla, as 50 million gallons of sewage and chemicals flow in from Tijuana daily. Listeners, what are your questions about the situation there? Are you familiar with or live in or near Imperial Beach? What have you seen or...

smelled? Are you a surfer? Have you surfed, I.B.? What's your reaction to what you're hearing? You can email forum at kqed.org. Find us on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, or threads at kqedforum.com

you can call us at 866-733-6786. Again, that's 866-733-6786. And Samia Karlamangal joins me now, national correspondent for The New York Times. Her recent piece is In California, There's One Import That Nobody Wants. Samia, really glad to have you with us. Thanks for having me, Mina. Also with us is Paula Stigler-Granados, associate professor of environmental health at San Diego State University.

Professor Paula, thank you for being with us too. Thanks. Happy to be here. So, Samia, let me start with you. There's sewage that goes directly into the ocean, but a major source is the Tijuana River. Can you tell us about it and what you saw when you visited a section of it? Definitely. So the Tijuana River begins in Mexico. It flows north into the United States and

And it is basically a dumping ground for all sorts of waste from Mexico. So that's sewage, industrial waste from factories, and all of that comes over the border. And so I visited the U.S. side of the river. The river is bright green in many places. It's not a color that is found in nature. It's filled with trash, plastic bottles, mattresses, old clothing, trash.

I mean, it's a really horrifying situation. And that winds all through southern San Diego and then ends in Imperial Beach. Yeah. You described it also as spotted with foam.

Yeah, this was a thing that a lot of researchers told me to look for, that there's foam in the river. Rivers should not be foaming. That's proof that there are some sort of chemical solvents in the river. Again, not things that you want in your river. And I should mention, the river smelled truly horrible. Like, the river smelled like sewage, but much worse. Like, actually kind of hard for me to describe. It smelled so bad. Yeah.

Yeah, and you were wearing a mask and it still seeped through, right? Yeah, I was wearing a mask. I could still smell it. A few days later, I got a terrible migraine, which is apparently a symptom of inhaling some of the things that might be in the river. So that is like a really toxic mess. And the main sources of waste are factories or...

It's, yeah, the advocates I talked to who've, you know, looked on the Tijuana side, they've been trying to figure it out, said it's actually kind of hard to figure out exactly what's going on. But their best guess is people living in Tijuana who aren't hooked up to the sewage system might be directly dumping sewage into the river. And then there are a lot of, I mean, American factories actually on the Mexico side that are, we think, dumping waste into the river.

Paula, you've taken samples. What's in the water chemically? Yeah, that's a good question that we're still looking for the answers for. And as we're pulling some of the samples, looking at chemicals and pathogens and just the water and the air and the soil, we're finding, you know, thousands of chemicals. You find the usual things that you would find in sewage.

That's expected to be found. Anything that gets flushed down a sewage system or we excrete from our bodies, you'll find that in this wastewater. But we're also finding chemicals like plasticizers, flame retardants, pesticides, a lot of different things that we're not exactly sure where they're coming from, but we're finding them in the water. And things get worse in the summer? Yeah.

Paula? Yeah, in the summer, really, the heat, it makes the organic matter decay a little bit faster. And when that happens, you have more decay, more organic material that's in that river water is creating these gases that get released wherever there's places in the river that kind of drop and create this waterfall effect. And I think that it's really good to note that this

Rivers should be dry in the summer. It's a seasonal river. It's wet in the rainy season, which we have here more in the winter. And we have rain that flushes everything into that river. And then we have a dry season when the river should be dry. And this last summer, we saw 50 to 80 million gallons a day of water in this river that should not be there.

And for the most part, the majority of it is wastewater. And so when you have these really concentrated, not diluted by the rain, river water, if you want to call it that, wastewater, you end up having a lot more

things that smell bad. And so it ends up just being basically like, if you could imagine being at a wastewater treatment plant where the waste is coming in before it gets treated, that's what's running through these communities. Wow. And you mentioned a waterfall effect. Can you just talk about the main ways that water pollution becomes airborne?

Yeah, so when you end up having this, again, concentrated amount of organic material like sewage that's decaying, it naturally creates gases and also the chemicals that are in the water create certain types of gases when they interact with themselves and with sunlight and with the water. And when you pipe it through some of these culverts where you have the river sort of, you know, keeping it from flooding the roads,

it ends up dropping, and when it drops, it basically aerosolizes. So you end up with a small waterfall, and when those bubbles burst,

that's whenever it releases the gases. So the gases are in the water, but whenever you have these water well effects, they get released into the air. And interestingly enough, a lot of the river flows at night, which is when we believe that the pumps are being turned on and the water is being released. And so you have these large flows of water at night from the sewage system. And whenever it comes,

kind of stagnates and moves its way through the community. And in San Diego, we have this amazing weather where it's pretty stable most of the time. But especially in the summer months, we have this marine layer that moves in and it kind of creates this pressure that pushes down on these gases and keeps them close to the ground.

And so as they're being released, the gases are just expanding out like a blanket across the community. And a lot of times these gases end up settling into people's homes right about the level of where your bed might be. And I think that that's also causing a lot of people to wake up gasping in the middle of the night because the smell is really getting to them. If it's spreading out, how far could it be reaching people?

You can smell it coming off the freeway as soon as you get down into the community. And to describe what our San Diego community looks like as you head down the 5 freeway, it stops at the border or ends at the border. But I'd say about 5 to 10 miles even before you get to that

point, you can smell it. You can smell it off a huge swath of the community. All of our South Bay communities can be impacted, and especially in the evenings. It's strongest nearest the river and the ocean and through the Imperial Beach and South San Diego communities, but you can smell it all the way from the freeway. It's bad. And some of our models are showing that it can float this gases all the way up to places like

La Jolla. So it's not staying local. The gases are expanding out across the entire southern part of San Diego. Yeah. And Somi, in terms of the water pollution, I think you said that it has affected Coronado?

Yeah, as the water pollution issue has gotten worse, it's moved more northward, basically more pollution is moving further up. And yeah, for a long time, it was just places like Imperial Beach, which are lower income. And people thought that's why this issue wasn't getting that much attention. And that is probably part of it. Recently, though, it's closed beaches in Coronado repeatedly. And the big Hotel del Coronado has had guests who haven't been able to go to the beach regularly.

because it's been closed because of sewage. So that's been an issue for at least a couple of years now. And the Navy SEALs who train in the water in Coronado have been getting sick too. There was just a report from the Navy Inspector General saying something like 1,200 Navy SEALs have become ill after training in those polluted waters. Hmm.

This listener writes, I lived in Tijuana for two and a half years. I got a staph infection from surfing right where the river feeds the ocean. This was 25 years ago. This has been a problem for a very long time. And listeners, you can share your questions and comments about the situation in Imperial Beach.

And in South County in San Diego at 866-733-6786 at the email address forum at kqed.org or by posting on our social channels at kqedforum. So, Amir, this has been going on for a long time as your reporting shows, but there have been some efforts to address this in the past with sewage treatment plants, right? What happened?

Yeah. So the U.S. and Mexico decided 20, 25 years ago, you know, this is an issue. I don't think we've mentioned that, you know, Tijuana is at an elevation. So the watershed naturally drains into the U.S., which is just lower geographically than Tijuana. So the U.S. and Mexico came to this agreement. There's all this sewage coming into San Diego. The U.S. will actually build a treatment plant that will treat Mexico's sewage. And

And so that plant exists. The issue is that the plant has become extremely overrun. There's more sewage than they can deal with. And the plant has fallen into disrepair at various times. And so the excess sewage often gets dumped directly into the ocean. And there's also a plant on the Mexico side that's smaller that was built at the same time. Same issues there. They can't treat all the sewage either because there's too much.

Or because the plant isn't operating as it should be. And again, the sewage just gets dumped into the ocean. So, I mean, over the decades, there have been all sorts of ideas and like true work done to deal with this issue. But it feels always like a solution is a little out of grasp. Yeah.

Paula, this listener writes, is there anything Mexico can do to lessen the impact of its waste? If so, why hasn't it? Why hasn't this agreement been modified? So Mexico is picking up some, if not all, of the responsibility for this situation. What do you say? That's a great question. I think that it's complicated in that Mexico actually has been investing into their sewage infrastructure. They have a

built a new wastewater treatment plant on their side and have had significant investment. But as the city grows and it's growing exponentially, and it has been for the last 20 years or more as a result of being next to the United States,

that it's been impossible to keep up with. And so I think that it's going to require a significant amount of funding, more than we could really imagine, to be able to get not just the sewage treatment plants working, but get people hooked up to the infrastructure. And so like we were talking about with these American companies, we call them maquiladoras, or on the other side of the border, it draws workers from across the entire country

You know Mexico and Central America and as people come to work, you know, they have have to find a place to live So it's a very complex situation where it's difficult to get all these individuals hooked up to a sewage system and treat You know all of that sewage at capacity. So I think Mexico's doing some work and there is conversations about this as a binational issue and I think

Probably one of the more important reasons that we're talking about, you know, this being going on for so long, the complexity of the issue is that this is an international crisis. It's not just a local Imperial Beach or southern San Diego County issue. This is an international crisis that's happening on the other side of the border as well. So not all the sewage runs just into the United States. Some of it floods out over onto the Tijuana side as well. Yeah.

And because it's an international or cross-border issue, it also requires the involvement of the federal government. Well, David writes, you don't need to go to Southern California to find raw sewage in the ocean. San Francisco dumps lots of raw sewage into the ocean from the ancient sewer system and

That combines sewage directly with stormwater. Marin County also has this problem. We need to invest more in our ancient sewer infrastructure. Yeah, Paula, what do you think what we're learning about with regard to sewage impacts in Imperial Beach can be applied to other parts of California? Yeah, I think that, you know, sewage runoff into our oceans has always been a problem, especially with this aging infrastructure. And in

infrastructure is important to fund and to keep up with. I think that the quantity, for example, of what's going on in the Tijuana area is that 80 billion gallons a day adds up to billions. And during the rainy season, we could have upwards of a billion gallons running into the ocean on a daily basis. And so

I feel like it's just, you know, investment into the infrastructure is important and it's been underfunded, underlooked at for a really long time. And in some communities, like Mayor Geary was saying, that it's even more overlooked. And it's one of the things that we've been talking about with this international wastewater treatment plant.

that we learned, you know, that it's been underfunded for its repairs for a really long time. And it's not just that one, but there's several of them across the U.S.-Mexico border that just didn't get the funding that they needed to maintain and operate at the levels it needed. And it didn't grow with the community. It didn't grow with the number of people that were, you know, moving into the region. And so I think that it's important to keep funding all of those issues, the infrastructure to keep things moving. Yeah.

Listeners, are you familiar with IB or live in or near Imperial Beach? How have you been affected? Are you a surfer? What's your reaction to what you're hearing? What questions do you have about the situation and its impacts?

I'm also curious if you were aware of this, given the fact that it's gone on for decades, or if this is the first time you're hearing about it and what you think about that. Again, the email address, forum at kqed.org, our social channels, Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, our phone number, 866-733-6786. Jeff on Blue Sky writes, does the river flood during the rainy season? If so, what's the impact of the flooding? And could climate change make flooding worse?

The impacts of climate change on this, Paula? Yes, that's a great question. It floods like crazy down there during the rainy season. And I had an opportunity to go down and meet with some of the horse ranchers, believe it or not, in southern San Diego, right where the river is, are these large amounts of horse ranches. And so it's sort of this wild area in San Diego that still exists, butted up to the city's

And whenever it floods, I've been hearing stories about not just the water, but the sediment. This sediment comes flowing in and it's toxic. It's full of all the things that the wastewater has had in it. Along with the wastewater, I saw some horrifying photos of people up to their waists,

in water, a couple of stories, unfortunately, of them losing their horses to illness shortly after the floods. So it's really bad down there during the rainy seasons. And it's so hard to address this because as that river floods, it just flows everywhere.

all of that waste all over the place. And people drive through it, they end up walking through it. And so whatever you can find in sewage, they're picking it up on themselves basically. And that's also how some of the illness spreads during these high seasons of flooding is just people coming into contact with way too much sewage. - Yeah, Samia, in terms of the shoreline being closed so that people don't go into the water,

Is that what happens? Are people basically not allowed in or do they go in at their own risk?

I think there are some people who go in at their own risk. When I was down there, there were signs on the beach in Imperial Beach that say very clearly, sewage-contaminated water, don't enter. And most people avoid even the sand, but there were people playing in the sand when I was there, just a few. And I've heard people say, at least up until recently, that they were still going into the water because...

I don't know. I mean, it's part of the reason that they live in these places. Like, you choose to live in a beach town because you want to surf or boogie board or go swimming. And I mean, it's really hard for people to give those things up. And someone I talked to was saying it's kind of like, I mean, it's Russian roulette. And so they hope, you know, they're going to be safe this one time they go surfing because the waves down there are really great. And it's just the culture of the whole place revolves around the beach. I mean, the beach in Imperial Beach is like...

that city's Central Park. It's like their playground. It's just really hard for people to part with it. Yeah. Gosh, does it also mean that there need to be lifeguards? Yeah.

Yeah, I actually don't know. I don't think there are anymore. No, there's lifeguards. Oh, are there? Oh, yeah, the lifeguards. We work with them pretty regularly now to understand what they're going through. There's a whole team of lifeguards right there at the pier. We have this big pier that goes out into the water right there on the beach, and that is like their central park right there. And the lifeguards are getting sick, and they're telling us about it. Now,

This is what I've been heard. They've told me anecdotally is that people are not supposed to go into the water, but they can't stop them. If they do go into the water and they need to be rescued, then they're going to face a pretty hefty fine for that because the lifeguards don't want to have to go into the water. But I wanted to bring up something else that's important is that the lifeguards want

on almost a daily basis, sometimes have to put their lives at risk because they have to jump into the water to rescue people that are trying to swim across the border. And so they're definitely getting sick as well. Thanks for that insight, Paula. We'll have more about Imperial Beach after the break. This is Forum.

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking about Imperial Beach this hour in San Diego County, where tens of millions of gallons of untreated sewage and industrial chemicals are flowing in from the Tijuana River and other sources every day. And according to the New York Times, it's the site of one of the nation's worst environmental disasters.

We're with Samia Karlamangla, national correspondent based in the Bay Area for The New York Times, whose piece you should check out is called In California, There's One Import That Nobody Wants. Also with Paula Stigler-Granados, associate professor in the School of Public Health and head of the Environmental Health Division at San Diego State University. And we're talking with you, our listeners. Are you familiar with IB? Have you been affected in some way or maybe you've visited? What have you seen or smelled?

What questions do you have about the situation at Imperial Beach and its impacts? Were you aware of this or is this the first that you're hearing of it? Tell us by calling 866-733-6786, by posting on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram or threads at kqedforum or by emailing forum at kqed.org.

Lance writes, President Trump needs to tell Mexico and their related American companies to fix this now. There are huge profits being made by Mexican and U.S. companies, and they need to be told to use those profits to permanently fix this unbelievable situation. This is corruption on both sides of the border that continues. So, Samuel, what are the solutions that are being floated, but also specifically being worked on?

So there's been about $500 million pledged to try to upgrade the facility on the American side. And that should increase its capacity, about double its capacity. I think it's something like it should go from being able to treat 25 million gallons a day to 50 million gallons a day. However, that is going to take a couple of years. So when Lee Zeldin, the head of the EPA, was in San Diego in April, he said,

He was saying he was compiling this long, long list of potential projects that he was going to sort of make happen. That list, I haven't been able to see that list. I don't know if they've sort of come up with a final plan. The EPA, when I reached out to them, said, you know, they're working with the administration. One of the ideas that he was talking about at that press conference in April was kind of like postmodernism.

pushing the sewage further out into the ocean so it would be less close to the shoreline. So I know there's been all sorts of ideas. But really, I mean, as we've been discussing, we need more capacity at these facilities that treat the sewage and to kind of identify exactly what is going into the Tijuana River and how that can be prevented. Paula, what do you think is needed to

to both stop the waste, but also it sounds like there would need to be a cleanup process too. That's exactly right. And I think that, you know, this is the beginning lately of, you know, a lot of serious discussions about the infrastructure capacity being expanded. It

It's going to work, you know, decently to have that double capacity during the dry season. The wet season, it's still going to flow out. And so there's been a lot of conversations around, you know, how can we divert this flow? I know Mayor Aguirre has proposed several ideas of how we could collaborate on diverting some of this river flow. But

But what you just said about this toxic mess that's left behind, it's going to take a lot to really clean this up. And something that, you know, we've mentioned this to the EPA. I've known them for many years. This is, again, an issue that I've been dealing with since I was a grad student back in 2001, taking water samples out there for some of my professors who now I'm sitting in their chairs looking at this issue. And I think that

The cleanup is going to take a long time, and I hope that people don't forget about that part because I do hope we can stop the flow of the sewage. I struggle even my own self to wrap my head around how large this issue is, and so it's going to take some really significant thinking and strategizing with really smart engineers to figure out how to make this stop and then how to deal with the aftermath of what's been done over the last 50 years or more.

Katherine writes, this is one more byproduct of our convenient and cheap consumer culture in the U.S. The marriage of cheap labor and U.S. companies acting irresponsibly. We're paying the price now for this chemical revolution of the past 100 years. It's disgusting that we're not holding companies to account and not recognizing our own selfish, ego-driven consumerism. Lawsuits need to start. Let me go to Lana in Mill Valley. Hi, Lana. You're on.

Hi there. I hope it's my radio down here. Yeah, you're sounding great. Go right ahead. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I just called to say that my grandson is training, getting close to finishing being an actual Navy SEAL. And he has described having to train and swim all the water exercises they do in that horrible, horrible water. I asked him, because we'd heard about this a couple months ago, the sewage. He said, oh, yeah. We

We, you know, we swim or do our exercises through it all the time. And, you know, they're all, they're getting sick. And I said, well, what do you do? You have to power through because you can't get out. If you do, you fail. So it's really, you know, they don't even have an option. There are times when they don't listen because it's so bad. But it's just crazy.

He said it's just unbelievable. And we're going down, going to be going down later this year for his graduation, talking about where to stay. He said absolutely do not try to stay in Imperial Beach or even Coronado because you may not even be able to go to the beach. So it's just horrendous to think.

that and listening to the expert here that this has been going on for so long and really nothing is being done about it. I just can't imagine. I can't imagine the description one of them said about the smell coming from the river.

how you live with that. So it's just from a personal experience, I was just horrified thinking about, oh my God, please don't get sick. Oh, Lana. Pretty awful. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. Congratulations to your grandson graduating, but also you're just illuminating so many of the issues with regard to the impacts of this also on the community.

and economic impacts as well. Samia, there really isn't any other option for the training Navy SEALs

Yeah, I mean, just to provide some context, like every Navy SEAL in America trains in that spot. So they go through something like a sort of hell week, that's supposed to be this really intense training, or they get very little sleep, tons of physical exertion. And then on top of that, this is the water that they're doing it in. So for years, Navy SEALs have been saying things like,

Like I contracted this infection on my arm that, you know, won't heal or I contracted meningitis. I mean, it's really, really just terrible conditions. And earlier this year, for the first time, the Navy inspector general was actually able to document that there have been hundreds of Navy SEALs who've gotten sick in these waters and that sometimes they move the trainings when the water quality is low, but sometimes they don't. And, you know,

Yeah, I think it's like an ongoing discussion about where to hold these trainings. But they have these really nice facilities in Coronado where they're supposed to be training, which is just, you know, a couple miles north of Imperial Beach. There's no separation from the dirty water in Imperial Beach.

And the water outside of where these facilities are. So these recruits are really exposed to terrible water. And I know that there are discussions about moving the trainings further north, but they are, you know, when I was there, actually, I saw them training in the water and on the sand.

just like half a mile north of Imperial Beach. So they're definitely still coming into contact with that water. Yeah. This listener writes, many years ago, corporations went to Mexico for cheap labor and weaker environmental laws. I think this is a problem caused by American companies. Are corporations being held accountable and asked to assist in the cleanup if chemicals are linked to their activities? Do you know, Samia?

This is something that I've heard so many people bring up. And I don't know, I don't think that corporations in any way are sort of being held accountable in terms of what they're putting in the river. But I know that this is something that people think is really important.

Paula, are you optimistic the administration will follow through on some of the things that, you know, say Lee Zeldin has talked about with regard to various projects that would help clean up or solve the crisis? Yeah, I'm optimistic. This is the most movement, like I said, I've seen in over 20 years on the topic. It's

you know, the needle has been moved a little bit. I think a lot of this attention to the research and also the hydrogen sulfide gas situation has really elevated in the last couple of years, it's gotten worse. And we predict that this is also, or we're guessing that this is a part of the breakdown in the infrastructure due to climate change. We had a hurricane come a couple of years ago here and hit that water treatment plant, broke apart some things. And

you know, it's just been incredibly intensely smelly for the last couple of years, which is, again, elevated the topic. So I have seen more movements. I got to accompany Mayor Guerrero over to D.C. also to talk about, you know, how do we get this as a as a, you know, a national issue? It's not just a local issue anymore. And it's been it's been it's been

It's been some movement. I think also going back to the Navy SEAL, and I just want to say, you know, reaching out to the grandma, as a parent, I can't imagine, you know, having my child swimming in this water. It's scary. And we've known about it for a long time. And to finally have, you know, the military come out and say, okay, yeah, we're acknowledging that this is an issue. I hope that that's also helping to sort of elevate this to get some movement on because, you know,

you know, not just how the NAV SEALs, we've also got our border patrol, again, our lifeguards, our different, you know, frontline workers that are out there in this, you know, really disgusting, toxic mess. So I'm hoping that more gets done, more people understand it, more people know about it, hopefully the more things...

can happen sooner than later, really. We need stuff now. This has literally reached a crisis tipping point where people are getting sick. And we've got a health survey that we launched recently

about a year ago where we're tracking people's health over time right now just to understand what's going on. And, you know, 70% of people are reporting upper respiratory issues. We've got skin rashes, nightmares, and something that people should understand about hydrogen sulfide gas, it's extremely toxic.

And this gas, you know, when people are breathing it in, it causes migraines and headaches, but it can also cause anxiety, brain fog. And these are things that we're hearing about from people. And so I feel like if we can continue to elevate the voices of the community to tell the government what's going on, that more action can happen and happen faster because people are getting sick and dying.

the repairs are going to take years, but we have to do something now. Yeah. That is specifically where your research is headed or focused on right now, Paula? Absolutely. We're doing the environmental monitoring, but we're also doing the public health surveys. And the surveys, you know, we need everybody to fill these out. And that's always the struggle. But from what we're seeing right now, it's correlating. And what I mean by that is that the smells...

are matched up with the heavy flows of the river and also people calling in and complaining to our local air pollution control district hotline that they're smelling things. And whenever it gets that bad that they're smelling it and reporting it, we're seeing also those health symptoms track with those episodes of the high flow, high smell, high complaints. And so we're trying to look at the bigger picture here and not just at the beach, but all

Yes, we're focused on the beach, but you're right, it's all along the Tijuana River, as Samuel was saying earlier. Let me just remind listeners, you're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. So are there issues with trying to get people to get to the beach?

describe their health impacts. I imagine you need enough of that to be able to also get the research funding that you need too. Absolutely. It's, you know, the community is tired. We've talked to them and they're tired of being surveyed. They're tired of being asked how they feel because they feel horrible and they have for years. And I think that there's a lot of people just feeling like nothing's been done and they're not being heard. And so it's,

It has been a little bit of a challenge to get people to open up and really talk about what's going on with their health. But slowly but surely, we're seeing more people coming out to talk about how they're feeling and, you know, what are their anxieties. There's even mental health issues around, you know, understanding that their property values have now dropped and that they can't leave and, you know, that they have to deal with the smell every night. Going...

house to house and taking household surveys. I've gone into people's homes and I don't even know if they're aware of how bad it smells inside their homes. Because they're not used to it. Yeah. It's hard to understand. Being a researcher down there, even us, we were getting sick.

So I myself personally got sick while I was down there and carried that back and, you know, have had ongoing health problems ever since we started doing research down there. And some of our students and postdocs and we have students doing their dissertations on this research because it's just so intense and there's so much going on down there. But yeah.

The community needs to be heard, and that's a challenge. I'm sorry to hear that, Paula, that you're going through that health-wise. This is Nur writes, how is the San Diego County Health Department responding? How is this being addressed at the local or state level? Samia, we talked with Mayor Aguirre earlier who was saying that she was trying to get

to make it a bigger part of their budget and a bigger part of their focus and attention. And she was trying to get a declaration of emergency from the state. Do you know if there's been any progress around those things? Yeah, I know the county is...

The county has sort of released a new water testing mechanism. So they provide these really detailed reports about the quality of the water. When I asked them about health issues, they directed me to some data that showed hospital visits for different reasons. But I think that the community definitely wants there to be more. And at the state level, I mean, the state has sort of punted to the federal government saying that it's

an international issue. And so there has been a little bit of, there has been a lot of frustration at the local level about sort of everyone sort of saying this isn't my problem and saying that it's the problem of, you know, the people above them. In the meantime, what kind of short term solutions are being floated or have been proven to be somewhat effective, Samia? Yeah.

Well, I mean, one great thing would be air purifiers, just that's sort of on the most basic level. As we've been talking about the river, you can avoid going into the water in the ocean. But the river winds through communities. And as Paul is saying, it's reaching the toxins are reaching people through the air. So air purifiers would be a great, a great step. I mean, a lot of

There's families that live near the river. The river, we should mention, also is very close to several schools. So those, I mean, at the very least, if we can't mitigate what's in the river, it would be great to mitigate the impacts that way. There's also conversations about trying to treat the river at different points, like maybe treat the river using some sort of

I guess more chemicals, but treat the river when it enters the U.S. to prevent those toxins from being carried all the way through San Diego. But I think that, I mean, as Paul is saying, the smell is so overwhelming and the air purifiers would certainly help with that. And

Yeah, the smell is not just an innocuous smell. It's like really toxins that are in people's homes. Paula, what do you tell people with regard to how to manage the pollution and the health issues in their homes or schools? Yeah, this is one of the questions that we've been trying to address as quickly as we can. And

I recently got elected to the board of the Air Pollution Control District, the governing board. And one of the things I'm hoping that we start to talk about is having these sort of warning systems like we have for air quality in general. You know, you have this sort of red, yellow, orange, purple system where we can tell people, hey, the hydrogen sulfide levels have been high. This is what, you know, especially immunocompromised people need to do or kids with asthma need

having these air filtration systems in the schools is super important so talking with them about that I agree with the air purifiers it's a band-aid but also to kind of understand the county has been giving out these free air purifiers and they've modified them to where they can help with the gases but they won't stop the smell what these air purifiers do is they will clear out the smells a little bit faster but the smell is still going to come and I think that we're just really struggling down here to figure out what is a good short-term solution and I

I think, again, the scope is so huge. We have to really put our big brains all together with the politicians and decision makers and the funders. And I really do think this is a national state of emergency. It's that big. Well, Paula, I appreciate everything that you've been doing to address those issues in your way. Paula Stigler Granados is associate professor in the School of Public Health and head of the Environmental Health Division at San Diego State University. Thank you.

Thank you. Also, Samya Kalamanga, national correspondent based in the Bay Area for The New York Times. Thanks for your piece inspiring this segment. Of course. Thanks for having me. And also my thanks to Mayor Aguirre and also to Caroline Smith for producing this. And as always, to listeners, this is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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