Congressional reps pushing CDC to investigate South Bay sewage health impacts
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Above: A May 18 report from KUSI’s Dan Plante on a rally of Coronado students to “stop the sewage.”
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — San Diego’s congressional delegation is calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to launch an investigation into the public health impacts of the Tijuana River sewage crisis.
The delegation joined California Sens. Laphonza Butler and Alex Padilla in a joint letter to the CDC director on Friday requesting an immediate examination of the contaminants in the “water, soil, and air” of San Diego County’s southernmost communities.
“The overburdened wastewater infrastructure in Tijuana, Mexico frequently results in raw sewage being released into the Tijuana River and off the coast of Baja California, ultimately contaminating waters off of southern San Diego,” the letter read.
Tijuana River designated as ‘endangered’ due to sewage crisis
“Taking into consideration the environmental justice implications of these transboundary flows, as well as their direct impact on federal workers, we ask that you approach this public health assessment with the highest level of urgency,” it continued.
Understanding the full scope of the crisis’ health impacts has been a focus of local officials, with the county recently launching new tools to track air conditions of communities along the Tijuana River and illness sustained by beachgoers who come into contact with contaminated water.
Over the course of the decades-long crisis, residents in Coronado and South Bay neighborhoods — many of which are low-income communities of color — have reported developing respiratory and skin conditions after exposure to the pollution.
Beachgoers have come to regularly experience nausea, vomiting, rashes and other symptoms following contact with South Bay’s coastal waters, whether it was direct or inadvertent through aerosolized sea spray.
The delegation’s letter also noted that federal workers, like the servicemembers stationed at U.S. Naval Bases in Coronado and Point Loma, have been among those to see health impacts.
Earlier this year, Congress took a big step towards addressing one of the root causes of these flows: The International Boundary and Water Commission received nearly triple its typical annual funding to put towards failing infrastructure at its South Bay International Water Treatment Plant.
Coronado students rally to ‘stop the sewage’
The treatment plant, which was built to catch sewage flows from Mexico, is one of the facilities on the U.S. side of the border contributing to the crisis, due to decades of mismanagement that has left the facility in an effectively inoperable condition.
State elected officials are also pursuing new laws aimed at reining in those who engage in deliberate dumping of waste into the Tijuana River.
“This pollution has hurt our communities for far too long,” U.S. Rep. Juan Vargas, who represents communities in southern San Diego, said in a statement on Friday. “Understanding the full scope of their health impacts is critical.”
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