San Diego’s famous beaches are facing a serious crisis as sewage contamination has led to closures across several popular spots, including Imperial Beach and parts of La Jolla and Coronado. The issue, originating from sewage flowing in from Tijuana, Mexico, has raised alarm due to dangerously high levels of bacteria detected in the water. Residents and officials are calling for urgent action, citing health concerns and economic impacts on the community. With warnings and closures in place, the city is grappling to resolve a century-old problem that continues to affect daily life and environmental health along California’s coastline.

Several San Diego beaches have been closed following a horrible find in the water.

City health officials issued an updated caution and closure list for beaches owing to sewage causing dangerously high levels of bacteria in the open waters.

Water contact closures have been ordered for the Silver Strand Shoreline, Imperial Beach Shorelines, and Tijuana Slough Shoreline along the United States-Mexico border.

The following areas received advisories: La Jolla, Children’s Pool, Coronado, Coronado Lifeguard Tower, Ocean Beach, Dog Beach, the San Diego River exit, Mission Bay, North Cove, and Vacation Isle.

According to KGTV, large yellow caution signs have been posted on the sand at Imperial Beach, the country’s dirtiest beach, since sewage has been streaming in from Tijuana, Mexico.

‘The level of stress when you smell the stench when you get sick and you worry about your children, and the level of stress and the depression is real,’ Dr. Marvel Harrison said during a press conference on Monday.

‘It’s difficult to measure, but it’s there.’

Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer announced plans to seek state and federal assistance to address the city’s century-old sewage problem.

‘We need our state and federal governments to declare a state of emergency,’ she advised.

‘Our community deserves clean air and clean water, and we will not rest until this is resolved.’ 

The Surfrider Foundation tested thousands of water samples around the country, and every sample recovered from Imperial Beach contained bacteria levels that exceeded the state’s health requirement for recreational waterways.

To develop funds, city officials intend to collect all required data to address the filthy situation that has taken over the beach city.

‘We also are going to be pursuing additional funding and support to discuss the public and economic impacts of the sewage crisis,’ Lawson-Remer said. 

California has three of the most polluted beaches in the country, according to the advocacy network.

The Surfrider Foundation also discovered that 64 percent of the 567 sites analyzed included at least one sample with dangerous bacteria levels.

A quarter of the samples came from California, with three of the state’s beaches ranking among the 10 most polluted.

The other extremely polluted California locale is Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica, where the survey discovered that more than half of the samples contained dangerous bacteria levels.

The mouth of the San Luis Obispo Creek in San Luis Obispo has 35% of samples with elevated bacteria counts.

Imperial Beach has been blocked for more than two years due to harmful untreated water from the Tijuana River Watershed that flows into the Pacific Ocean before reaching the town.

Aguirre earlier told the Los Angeles Times: “People in my community are getting sick left and right.”

‘We cannot afford to continue to punt the responsibility across the border because we have a dire situation here on United States soil, on California soil, that is harming California constituents.’

Residents near the beach report health difficulties as a result of the cross-border sewage problem.

Shannon Johnson, a local who has lived a few blocks from the beach since 2010, stated in March that she and her children no longer visit the beach.

Johnson told CBS that every time they go to the beach, they question, “Is it going to be clean?” When are they going to fix it?”‘

Despite nearly 700 straight days of beach closures, Imperial Beach residents continue to face the daily effects of pollution.

Johnson stated that her small children had also been exposed to the terrible odor because they attended school along the river valley.

According to a San Diego State University study, heavy metals, harmful compounds, and germs found in the water are being discharged into the atmosphere and stored in the soil.

‘I’m more frustrated than ever when we discovered that it flies into the air. “So it’s not just the water,” another resident told CBS.

Another neighbor who filed a letter urging action described the odor as ‘similar to being locked in a portable toilet,’ so intense that it wakes them up at night.

Recently, GreatGameIndia reported that as of the most recent published count from 2020-2021, there were 1,093 sewage treatment plants with operational capabilities of just 26.9 billion liters of wastewater per day, indicating that only 37% of India’s wastewater is treated.