A new report on California beach water quality confirms the dire conditions of ocean waters off San Diego County’s southern coast, exacerbated by the millions of gallons of untreated sewage from the Tijuana River.
Heal the Bay’s annual list of the state’s 10 most polluted beaches in California includes four from San Diego County and two just across the border, with some of the highest bacteria levels in their ocean waters.
The local beaches on the nonprofit’s “beach bummers” list were Tijuana River Mouth, Tijuana Slough, Border Field State Park and Imperial Beach in the South Bay, along with Playa Blanca and El Faro in Tijuana.
This year’s findings reflect an increasingly glaring reality for the county’s beaches’ health: It’s also a climate story.
“Most of our sites this year have been impacted by either urban runoff from storms flushing pollution out to the coast, or inadequate and aging sewage infrastructure, which has also been impacted by those big storms,” said Annelisa Moe, a scientist with the Santa Monica-based nonprofit.
San Diego County received 12 inches of rain last year, versus a historical average of 10 inches, according to the report.
That led to severe flooding and overwhelmed many wastewater conveyance systems, spewing more than 20 million gallons of wastewater in the region.
South Bay beaches’ proximity to the mouth of the Tijuana River means that they are often tainted by pollution from across the U.S.-Mexico border. All year round, residents of San Diego’s southern coast, from Coronado to Imperial Beach, experience swimming restrictions, health advisories and beach closures.
“I’m not surprised any of them made the list,” said Sarah Davidson, a program manager with the Surfrider Foundation, which recently released its own clean water report with similar findings for local beaches. “The situation continues to worsen everyday.”
But in Heal the Bay’s last assessment of the state’s beaches, none of the usual suspects were flagged.
The organization’s advocates at the time said they were stumped by the county’s recent adoption of a highly sensitive DNA-based test for water quality. So none of the beaches on San Diego’s southern coast were named last year as among the state’s most polluted, except the Tijuana River mouth.
The report didn’t use that testing method in its grading system this year, either.
Instead, by converting the DNA-based test results, Heal the Bay was still able to collect insight on the water quality from the region’s beaches.
Still, those findings could have been clouded by the method’s sensitivity, the report warned.
“We’re going to work on being able to use our grading system for that rapid testing, because if it’s once proved reliable, we want that to be used as often as possible,” Moe said. “Having results within an hour is great, but for now, we’re not able to make grades for those beaches.”
So far this year, the Tijuana River sewage crisis has prompted growing calls for federal and state support.
In a June letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, all mayors in San Diego County urged him to declare the Tijuana River Valley in a “state of emergency.”
Newsom’s response for months has been the same: that federal authorities should take charge and fund dilapidated wastewater facilities, such as the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The San Ysidro-based plant had long operated at more than it could handle, and in 2020, Congress approved $300 million to double its capacity.
But more recent assessments have indicated more funding is needed: A government memo obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune last year suggested it already needed $150 million in repairs alone. A few months later, officials with the binational agency that operates it pegged the full cost of repairs and expansion at $900 million.
Local officials also recently sent a formal request to the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for epidemiological help with potential health issues caused by the sewage flow.
Despite the attention Heal the Bay’s report paid to southern San Diego County beaches, the county also got some good from this year’s beach report.
Both Point Loma Lighthouse and Moonlight beaches made the list’s honor roll, awarded for their low and controlled bacterial counts in ocean waters during the year.
“The interesting thing with San Diego County is the variability with the water quality,” Moe said. “There are areas where San Diego is doing the right thing … Unfortunately, because of the way that ocean currents move, there’s definitely an impact from that cross-border region.”
