Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer has asked cities in her north coastal district to pledge funding to help purchase more air purifiers for residents in South Bay coastal communities

affected by the Tijuana Sewage Crisis. For every dollar a city pledges, Supervisor Lawson-Remer’s Office will match it using County of San Diego grant funds.

In the letter sent this week to four cities – Encinitas, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Carlsbad, Supervisor Lawson-Remer, who is also Vice Chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, wrote in part:

“...I am reaching out to invite you to join a North Coastal partnership aimed at supporting our South Bay coastal community neighbors urgently in need of additional air purifiers due to the Tijuana sewage crisis. We all know that air and ocean water know no boundaries, and as North coastal residents, we can empathize with the impacts a crisis like this would have on our lives…Air purifiers are a critical stopgap measure to protect public health while we push for long-term infrastructure solutions…Let us unite as coastal communities, demonstrating our shared commitment to environmental justice and public health…”

Editor Note: A copy of the entire letter is pasted below.

So far, the Supervisor’s Office has received responses from at least one city and expects others will follow. Supervisor Lawson-Remer is building upon the actions of her colleague, Chairwoman Nora Vargas. Chairwoman Vargas in June secured support from the Board of Supervisors to use $100,000 of County funds to purchase around 400 air purifiers to distribute via a random lottery for South Coastal residents. At the end of August, the Chairwoman began distributing them, but more are needed. During a recent SANDAG meeting, Chairwoman Vargas mentioned the possibility of other municipalities chipping in to help and Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s letter is taking action on that idea to build support among coastal neighbors to help South Bay residents. Also, the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District is taking action to purchase air purifiers.

Background: Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s Involvement in Helping to Fix the Tijuana Sewage Crisis

Supervisor Lawson-Remer has been advocating for the state and federal government to step up with more funding and support to resolve the Tijuana Sewage Emergency Environmental Crisis. In June 2023, Supervisor Lawson-Remer, working with Chairwoman Nora Vargas got more than 2,500 county residents to sign a petition calling for federal action from President Joe Biden. Later that month at the urging of Supervisor Lawson-Remer and the Chairwoman, the Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency in response to the ongoing transboundary sewage and pollution crisis. The Board also called on Governor Gavin Newsom and President Biden to issue similar declarations that would expedite access to federal resources and draw national attention to the crisis.

Supervisor Lawson-Remer worked with and lobbied the San Diego congressional delegation to take action, and went to Washington to lobby others. So far, the U.S. The Federal Government has made more than $456 million available to fix the international wastewater treatment plant on the U.S. side of the border. After significant lobbying, the Mexican government agreed to fix the main sewage plant on their side of the border, and they have an aggressive deadline. These have been major steps in the right direction for a problem that has been decades long, but Supervisor Lawson-Remer continues to fight for more investments to permanently resolve the issue.

In June 2024, Supervisor Lawson-Remer secured support from the Board of Supervisors for a policy she introduced to expand data collection and develop stronger decontamination protocols for sewage-contaminated floodwaters. The Policy will:

● Launching a Community Health Survey examining health impacts beyond direct water exposure

● Development of a Tijuana River Public Health Risk Dashboard

● Development of a local decontamination protocols for sewage contaminated floodwaters

● Collaboration with the Task Force to develop a list of data sources that can support tracking

sewage-associated non-reportable diseases.

● Requesting zip-code level data from California Breathing Program.

● Enhanced communication with other agencies to increase surveillance and testing under their purview,

including San Diego Regional Water Control Board, Air Pollution Control District, CDPH, and CDC.

● Pursuing additional funding and support to assess economic and public health impacts of the sewage

crisis.

On September 18, 2024 Supervisor Lawson-Remer convened a meeting with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), San Diego County Air Pollution Control District (SDAPCD), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), County of San Diego Public Health Services (PHS), the Department of Environmental Quality (DEHQ), and researchers from San Diego State University and the University of California San Diego to discuss how to best collaborate and share information amongst the different groups and agencies working to address the odors and health effects of sewage from the Tijuana River Valley.