Imperial Beach cleanup event highlights water contamination issues at US—Mexico border – NBC 7 San Diego

Vince Harris and Maya Duncan were among dozens of volunteers who spent the morning picking up full bags of trash found at Imperial Beach.

The San Diego Association and Surfrider Foundation hosted a community beach cleanup event Saturday morning.

“People want to swim, people want to surf, people want to fish, people want to enjoy what California has to offer,” Harris said.

But beachgoers at Imperial Beach have not been able to enjoy these activities recently due to signs warning them of the water contamination in the area.

“People’s health is the biggest thing here. I wouldn’t feel comfortable going in the water with everything going on here and you’re supposed to feel safe, and it’s supposed to be clean,” Duncan said.

The contamination has gotten so bad, the southern end of the beach has been closed for 552 days.

Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre said events like this beach cleanup help raise awareness of the issue.

“We’re severely impacted by cross-border pollution coming from the Tijuana River,” Aguirre said.

She said the issue has been ongoing for more than a decade.

The city received $300 million through the United States, Mexico and Canada agreement to identify and solve the problem. Since then, the EPA has rolled out a plan.  

“We’ve been making progress for five, 10, 15 years, we’ve got some funding – there’s appropriations that took place and we haven’t seen any real traction,” Mayor Aguirre said.

She said for more to be done, more money is needed.

Aguirre recently sent the Biden Administration a letter calling for a state of emergency.

“Just like any other natural or man-made, when a state of emergency is declared, you have an influx of funding, of resources, of interagency coordination, our crisis …. our emergency is no different,” Aguirre said.

She said additional federal and state funding would help expand the sewage treatment plant and help reduce beach closures.

“It’s going to be beyond the $300 million that were secured, we were already having to advocate for additional funding for phase 2 of the expansion of the sewage treatment plant, I mean we’re talking about probably 900 million dollars, which is a drop in the bucket for a lot of these other agencies’ budget,” Aguirre said.

She said this would make the beach more accessible to tourists and locals like Harris.

“I’d say there has to be a bigger push to keep the beaches clean, keep the water clean, it’s going to provide a lot of enjoyment, just fun for California residents,” Harris said.