IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. — Parents in the South Bay are questioning if it’s safe to send their kids to school amid the cross-border contamination.
The sewage crisis is now hurting enrollment and some current students are pleading with President Joe Biden for help.
“Hello President Biden…” writes Kylie Blanco, “I think it’s unfair to everyone including sea animals…”
Blanco is taking her message to the top with a letter to the President. “Imperial Beach is contaminated, and we can’t enjoy the water...We should do something about this.”
Blanco hopes leaders listen, “Not only is the water contaminated but we have no choice… thank you for your time and I hope this comes true so we can enjoy Imperial Beach.”
Blanco and her mom Sophia loved beach days in Imperial Beach, “Our main thing was getting in the water but we can’t do that anymore,” says Blanco
It's been too dangerous to go to Imperial Beach for more than two years due to sewage contamination from Mexico. “It’s sad, they have a local, free beach here and they can’t enjoy it,” says Sophia Blanco.
Here at Sunnyslope Elementary School, students sometimes get wafts of the sewage smell. This school is east of the I-5 freeway, so imagine what it’s like at Barry Elementary, Nestor Language Academy, or Oneonta Elementary, all within blocks of the Tijuana River Valley.
Blanco says, “The smell can affect everyone’s health because you have like trash and doo-doo.” Sophia says, “We have had some days it is smelly and they’re asking, ‘What’s that smell? It's bad,' and they’re covering their noses.”
But the concern goes beyond the smell or missing beach days. It’s about the health of these innocent children.
Sophia says, “I feel like children are more at risk of illnesses. We can’t be blind that we are breathing this contaminated air so how could there not be any correlation with illness.”
Sophia shares the same worries of local doctors who are hoping county health officials (now compiling data from South Bay Urgent Care) will prove what they've suspected all along.
“I have Kylie and I have a little one as well, who are constantly getting sick and kind of makes me wonder could it be because of the contamination?” Sophia says.
“We don’t know the medical impact it’s having,” says Superintendent of South Bay Union School District Jose Espinoza. He is faced with the monumental challenge of trying to make up for a nearly 50 percent decline in enrollment.
He says the district went from about 10,000 students in 2011 to now only about 5,000 students, “If I can afford to go somewhere, I’m going to make that choice to go somewhere else because, of course, the health of my family and my children are the most important things to me.”
The district does not have the data to prove lower enrollment is directly related to sewage flows. But while schools throughout the state face lower enrollment, none of them in San Diego are as low as South Bay Union’s.
With lower enrollment, that means lower funding, but Superintendent Espinoza still hopes to invest some money in getting purifiers in classrooms.
In the meantime, several elementary students at South Bay Union hope White House leaders read their letters.
“It’s amazing how honest students always are and how they perceive their world,” says Espinoza.
Some are even drawing pictures of their views with what looks like fumes coming out of rolling hills near where children play.
Third graders are begging adults to fix a problem that has plagued this community for generations.
Superintendent Espinoza says the School Board will look at declining enrollment to decide if they need to possibly consolidate schools. A decision could come by June on how to handle the loss of student enrollment.