The City of Imperial Beach has joined a list of cities in San Diego County that are requesting assistance from the White House with sewage leaks from Tijuana.
The mayor of Imperial Beach said the recent closures from the sewage spills present a public health and economic crisis. Businesses and beach visitors have also expressed their frustration.
A few weeks after the devastating 2017 Tubbs Fire raged through parts of northern California, Gerald and Serene Buhrz returned to their Santa Rosa home, turned on the kitchen sink faucet, and were hit with a stinging smell.
Health experts say the Salton Sea poses a health risk to the residents who live around it, especially in the age of coronavirus. The lake’s continued evaporation is already making Valley residents sick, and it could make virus patients even sicker. Farmlands in Imperial County use less water from the Colorado River than ever before. Most of the river’s water now goes to cities like San Diego and Los Angeles. That means less irrigation water drains into the Salton Sea. It’s rapidly shrinking.
California regulators are seizing on a chance to study the public health effects of air pollution, as stay-at-home orders and drops in freight traffic related to the coronavirus pandemic have presented a unique research opportunity.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will award nearly $280,000 to four environmental projects benefiting the U.S.-Mexico border region between California and Baja California. With matching funds, the total benefit to the projects will total over half a million dollars.
We all know what rolls downhill and smells bad. Nowhere is it more true than in the Tijuana River Valley in southern San Diego County, where for years toxic cross-border sewage spills have created the biggest ongoing water pollution and environmental justice crisis in the United States. While some progress has been made in recent negotiations with Mexico to fund solutions, it could take years to realize significant improvements.
Imperial County is seeking to declare a public health emergency at the Salton Sea, The Desert Sun has learned, aiming to force Gov. Gavin Newsom and federal officials to free up emergency funds and take immediate action to tamp down dangerous dust.
County supervisors will vote Tuesday on an urgent action item to proclaim a local air pollution emergency due to airpollution at the state’s largest lake, which is rapidly shrinking and exposing shoreline that is potentially loaded with contaminants from decades of agricultural runoff and military testing.
People flock to a Chula Vista parking lot to fill up jugs with water from a colorful kiosk owned by Colorado-based Watermill Express.
The company is one of several competing for customers suspicious of city tap water and fed up with buying bottled water.
Watermill, which runs a few dozen water vending machines across San Diego County, typically pays about $4,000 for the water that comes into its machines – city tap water that must meet state and federal water quality standards to begin with.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
