Report from the “stinkiest beach in the USA”

Good morning, Inequality Insights readers. I’m CalMatters reporter Wendy Fry.

Tuesday was one of those perfect summer days in Southern California. While the beaches at La Jolla and Del Mar were crowded, the coast in South County of San Diego was almost deserted.

The reason is that over the past five years, more than 375 billion liters of raw sewage have been flushed from Mexico’s Tijuana River into the Pacific Ocean. The raw sewage regularly pollutes and clogs the shoreline of Imperial Beach, a small coastal town of about 26,000 residents. The stench can be nauseating.

“Imagine opening a manhole cover and just jumping in. That’s what it feels like to hang out at the beach today,” Imperial Beach resident Wilson Howard told me. I was there to shoot videos and interview people for a piece I’m putting together for our PBS SoCal partnership called SoCalMatters.

“(The smell) wakes you up at night. It’s that strong,” said Cara Knapp, who lives by the ocean on Seacoast Drive and has the beach as her backyard.

As you might imagine, Knapp and other residents aren’t happy about the flood of sewage that has been washing ashore for decades. IB was once a premier surfing destination, but today it has a new title.

“They call us ‘the smelliest beach.’ Who wants to buy a house – for a million dollars or more – and be known as ‘the smelliest beach in the United States?'” Knapp said.

But what does all this have to do with inequality, you might ask?

A lot, says Fay Crevoshay, communications and policy director for WILDCOAST, an international nonprofit focused on conserving coastal and marine ecosystems.

A large part of the raw sewage comes from very poor Colonies or neighborhoods in Tijuana where people – driven by poverty and homelessness – use garage doors, tires and other discarded materials to build makeshift shacks and buildings that are not connected to public infrastructure. Their wastewater flows directly into a canal that empties into the United States, she said. When it rains, garbage and sewage are washed through the Tijuana River into working-class neighborhoods in the South Bay.

“I like how these communities are described in the U.S. as ‘underserved.’ In Mexico, they say ‘unserved.’ No service. No service at all,” Crevoshay described.

Imperial Beach locals aren’t just concerned about the unpleasant smells. Researchers say the toxins in the water pose a serious threat to public health, which is why Imperial Beach beaches are often closed.

State Sen. Steve Padilla, a Democrat from the nearby city of Chula Vista, and Rep. David Alvarez, whose district is in South County, want California to support a resolution that involves the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Governor Gavin Newsom has declined to declare a state of emergency and would not give a reason for doing so, according to Voice of San Diego.

“They just need to show people that they care, because right now, with the exception of David Alvarez, our state representative, and Steve Padilla, our senator, we feel pretty abandoned by our state elected officials and also by our state agencies on this issue,” said Serge Dedina, WILDCOAST’s executive director and former mayor of IB.

Look for our upcoming video segment on this topic. SoCalMatters airs weekdays at 5:58 p.m. on PBS SoCal and is available on YouTube.