A majority of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors have delayed a decision on whether to ask the federal government to consider declaring the Tijuana River Valley a Superfund site, a designation saved for the most toxic parts of the nation.
Yet shortly after being on the losing side of Tuesday’s 3-2 vote, Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer announced she would essentially sidestep her colleagues and join other elected officials in formally asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to launch an investigation into longstanding pollution and sewage problems in South County.
The move could create a rift with Nora Vargas, another Democrat on the board, who is worried that the process might hinder other cleanup efforts.
“I had hoped my colleagues would join me in acting with urgency on this matter today, but they preferred to consider my Superfund proposal in 90 days with additional analysis,” Lawson-Remer said in a statement. As a result, “I am working with leaders from across the San Diego region” and “we are submitting an immediate petition to the EPA.”
Lawson-Remer believes the agency could help pay for what will almost certainly be a massive cleanup and that federal investigators may be able to answer crucial questions about the quality of the soil and air. Her petition will be joined by Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and National City Mayor Ron Morrison, among others.
Vargas, who represents much of South County, criticized what she called a “rushed political move that may slow down real solutions.”
“My community deserves a seat at the table in deciding how we address the Tijuana River Valley’s environmental challenges,” she said in a statement. “Jumping into a Superfund designation without carefully considering the potential consequences could leave our communities waiting for years.”
The board chair added during Tuesday’s meeting that staffers needed more time to weigh how involving the EPA might reduce local control and affect everything from local property values to tourism.
Sewage pouring from Mexico into the United States has long left those living along the border with headaches, breathing problems and nausea, among other problems, and there have been repeated calls for California and the federal government to declare a state of emergency. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will begin interviewing residents about their health later this month.
On top of that, water-quality testing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection previously found a number of hazardous chemicals near the river, including the banned pesticide DDT.
“This problem is not just sewage,” Paula Stigler Granados, an environmental health professor at San Diego State University, told the board. “It is also industrial waste.”
Granados is part of team of researchers that once declared “a public health crisis” in the area. Their findings have sometimes been at odds with those of county officials, who have repeatedly said residents’ lives are not in immediate danger, but there is broad agreement that pollution nonetheless poses a long-term risk.
“It is such a complex issue because of the level of governments that are working together,” Vargas said in a phone interview Monday. “I believe that we, for the first time, are working together.”
On an East Coast trip last month, the supervisor said she met with leaders from the EPA, the CDC and the White House and Vargas is in contact with Mexico’s ambassador to the United States as well as Tijuana Mayor Ismael Burgueño Ruiz. Furthermore, the county is already applying for grants through the EPA.
Vargas was joined Tuesday by her two Republican colleagues, Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson, in moving to revisit the Superfund issue in about three months. Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe opposed delaying the decision, but did not say in a follow-up statement whether she would join Lawson-Remer’s petition.
More than 300 people submitted comments online or spoke at the hearing to support a formal EPA investigation. “This is an emergency,” said National City Councilmember Marcus Bush. “We’ve heard enough testimony.”
National City’s mayor noted that the crisis may have first gained national attention decades ago when Brian Bilbray, the then-mayor of Imperial Beach, got so fed up that he climbed into a bulldozer and drove it into a levee by the river, thereby diverting raw sewage away from a willow grove and into Lake Tijuana.
“If there had been adequate environmental enforcement in the valley, none of this would have been necessary,” Bilbray said in 1990. “I decided, let’s get the job done and talk about it later.”
A few members of the public raised concerns about a Superfund designation potentially displacing residents or shutting down farms.
Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, which has soil contaminated by pesticides and other chemicals, is currently the county’s only Superfund site, according to federal records.
