A wave of San Diego beaches have been closed after a sickening discovery in the water.
City health officials released an updated list of beach advisories and closures due to sewage creating alarmingly high levels of bacteria in open waters.
Water contact closures were issued for Silver Strand Shoreline, Imperial Beach Shorelines and Tijuana Slough Shoreline, located along the US-Mexico border.
Advisories were issued for La Jolla, Children’s Pool, Coronado, Coronado Lifeguard Tower, Ocean Beach, Dog Beach, the mouth of the San Diego River, Mission Bay, North Cove and Vacation Isle.
At Imperial Beach, the number one dirtiest beach in the country, bright yellow warning signs have been placed in the sand because sewage flows from Tijuana, Mexico. KGTV reported.
Water contact closures were issued for Silver Strand Shoreline, Imperial Beach Shorelines (pictured) and Tijuana Slough Shoreline, located along the US-Mexico border.
Heavy metals, toxic chemicals and bacteria detected in water are released into the air and remain in soils. (pictured: the Tijuana Slough coast)
“The level of stress when you smell the stench, when you get sick and worry about your kids, and the level of stress and depression is real,” Dr. Marvel Harrison said during a press conference Monday.
“It’s hard to measure, but it’s there.”
Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer announced they plan to work on obtaining state and federal funding to fix the city’s century-old wastewater problem.
“We need our state and federal governments to declare a state of emergency,” he advised.
“Our community deserves clean air and water, and we will not rest until this is resolved.”
The Surfrider Foundation tested thousands of water samples across the country and every sample recovered from Imperial Beach returned bacteria counts that exceeded the state’s health standard for recreational waters.
To establish funding, city officials plan to gather all the data needed to try to fix the unhealthy problem that has taken over the coastal city.
“We will also seek additional funding and support to discuss the public and economic impacts of the wastewater crisis,” Lawson-Remer said.
California is home to three of the most polluted beaches in the country, according to the activist network.
The Surfrider Foundation also found that 64 percent of the 567 sites tested had at least one sample with dangerous bacteria levels.
A quarter of the samples came from sites in California, with three Golden State beaches among the ten most contaminated.
The other heavily contaminated California locations are Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica, where the survey found that more than half of the samples had dangerous bacteria levels.
At the mouth of San Luis Obispo Creek in San Luis Obispo, 35 percent of the samples returned high levels of bacteria.
Imperial Beach has been closed for more than two years due to untreated toxic water from the Tijuana River basin that empties into the Pacific Ocean before reaching the city.
Advisories were issued for La Jolla, Children’s Pool, Coronado, Coronado Lifeguard Tower, Ocean Beach, Dog Beach and North Cove Public Beach (pictured).
California is home to three of the most polluted beaches in the country, according to a recent survey by the Surfrider Foundation
Aguirre previously told Los Angeles Times: ‘People in my community are getting sick left and right.
“We cannot afford to continue shifting responsibility across the border because we have a terrible situation here on American soil, on California soil, that is harming California voters.”
Residents living near the beach say they are experiencing health problems as a result of the cross-border sewage problem.
In March, resident Shannon Johnson, who has lived a few blocks from the beach since 2010, said she and her children no longer set foot in the sand.
Johnson told CBS: “Every time we go to the beach they ask us, ‘Is it going to be clean?’ “When are they going to fix it?”
Despite Imperial Beach experiencing more than 700 consecutive days of beach closures, residents continue to endure the daily effects of pollution.
Johnson mentioned that her young children have also been exposed to the odor since they attend school near the river valley.
According to a study from San Diego State University, heavy metals, toxic chemicals and bacteria detected in water are released into the air and remain in the soil.
“I’m more frustrated than ever since we found out about water spreading through the air. It’s not just about the water,” another resident told CBS.
Another resident who wrote a letter asking for action said the smell is “similar to being trapped in a port-a-potty,” so strong that it wakes them up at night.
Ocean water generally tends to be clean, except after it rains, when runoff and storm water wash up on the beach.
San Diego Beach and Bay Program have created a helpful chart to help residents determine warning levels at their local beaches.
Black and yellow signs represent sewage advisories, blue and orange signs inform people of warnings, and a bright yellow and red sign means beaches are closed due to sewage issues.