IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. — Beaches all across San Diego County have reopened or will reopen soon. However, Imperial Beach is a little different. The shore and sand are open, but the water is closed due to cross border pollution.
City leaders held a media conference on Tuesday calling for emergency action from both Mexico and the U.S. to stop the flow of sewage.
IB Mayor Serge Dedina spoke with News 8 in early April after a video from Tijuana showed sewage being pumped straight into the Tijuana River. Dedina said, “There has been a minimum of 50 million gallons of raw sewage in the Tijuana River every day since the end of November, which we have been complaining about to high-level officials in Mexico and the U.S. It was just another indication that officials in Baja California made no attempt at all to do anything to fix the sewer system.”
A group called “Stop the Poop” held a counter-protest to display their lack of confidence in local leaders handling the issue. The group called the cross border pollution “environmental and biological terrorism on the people of the United States of America.”