SAN DIEGO — The San Diego County Air Pollution Control District Governing Board met Thursday afternoon where they discussed efforts to address raising concerns over the cross border pollution.
“This is an emergency, there's raw sewage spilling into our rivers…our ocean,” San Diego County Air Pollution Control District Governing Board member Marcus Bush said.
This week, independent researchers reported detecting high levels of toxic gases near the border.
“At this time we have not seen data to suggest that there's an immediate risk to life in health. However we’re not waiting for additional data to act,” San Diego County Air Pollution Control Officer Paula Forbis said.
Forbis tells CBS 8, they have received more than 200 complaints about odors and health impacts from people in the area since the end of July.
“As a result of that we issued two notices of violation to the IBWC and its contractor Veolia. They operate the wastewater treatment plant and infrastructure that should be treating a lot of the sewage in that area,” Forbis said.
Its an issue which drove a room of people together to understand what the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District Governing Board is doing to offer relief to people impacted.
“I think it was a huge step forward, we voted to fund air filters, we voted to send a letter to Governor Newsom and President Biden to fix this to declare an emergency that hasn't been declared,” Bush said.
The office of Chairwoman Nora Vargas said in release the Air Pollution Control District will launch a robust public information campaign with school districts, cities and the county to offer the community information on air quality and resources in an accurate and timely manner.
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