5 days ago
This California beach used to be filled with families. Now it's deluged with Mexican sewage
Imperial Beach, California, is a city with a dirty secret.
There's a reason why nobody, beyond a determined bunch of early-morning surfers, ventures beyond its sandy beaches and into the sea. It's the same reason local restaurants source their fish from further up the coast, and residents keep their windows shut at night, even during the sweltering West Coast summers.
The city, a short drive south of San Diego, is being polluted by billions of gallons of raw sewage flowing across the Mexican border every year.
Its beaches have been forced to close, its air is being contaminated by pollutants hundreds of times above levels deemed safe, and locals are falling violently unwell.
The issue is now a source of tension between the US and Mexico, and The Telegraph understands that Donald Trump has given a personal commitment to tackle it as the two countries attempt to negotiate a solution.
When The Telegraph visited earlier this year, Tom Csanadi, a retired paediatrician, was looking out at the view from his home on the beachfront.
To the north he could see the curve of the coastline as it arcs towards San Diego, and directly in front of him the blue of the Pacific Ocean, with an old wooden pier stretching a quarter-mile out to sea.
Rising up on a hillside to the south, beyond the border wall, is the Mexican city of Tijuana, which even at a distance of a few miles seems to dwarf Imperial Beach.
'S--- flows downhill,' Dr Csanadi said. 'And we're downhill.'
Tijuana is one of Mexico's fastest-growing cities, exploding in size since the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) came into force in the mid-1990s.
But its development was too fast for the antiquated and neglected sewage systems on either side of a border, which were overwhelmed by the demands of a population that now numbers more than 2.3 million and is climbing ever higher.
Instead, up to 80 million gallons of its waste is flooding into the Pacific Ocean and the cross-border Tijuana River every day.
The river used to disappear during the dry months, from around June to September. But these days it is kept flowing by a cocktail of raw sewage and industrial chemicals, bearing viruses, bacteria and parasites into the US.
Imperial Beach is bearing the brunt of it, and has become what some locals refer to as 'Mexico's toilet'.
Dr Csanadi and his wife, Marvel Harrison, thought they had staked out their own share of paradise when they bought an undeveloped plot on the beachfront 10 years ago.
Over time, it became a family home for them and their children – along with a pet chicken roaming outdoors called Daphne – and at the back of their minds, they thought they would be there for the rest of their lives.
They don't think that any more.
In the years since moving in, Dr Harrison, a psychologist, has developed a condition similar to asthma that has left her with a chronic cough and means she has to use an inhaler. There are some days when she can't walk on the beach because of the strain it puts on her lungs.
'We're a small town with a global problem,' she said, taking sips from a large mug of tea in her kitchen between barely-suppressed coughs.
As for Dr Csanadi, he has developed an E coli infection that is resistant to antibiotics and regularly comes down with sinus issues.
Accounts of chronic illness are common throughout Imperial Beach, where residents report cases of migraines, respiratory conditions, stomach problems, fatigue, skin infections and nausea.
Authorities say hundreds of Navy Seals, training at the base a short distance up the coast, have developed gastrointestinal issues from contact with contaminated ocean water.
The dead animals that regularly wash up shows the wildlife isn't immune either. A group of bottlenose dolphins found on a beach one summer were killed by sepsis caused by bacteria transmitted via urine or faeces, researchers at State Diego State University found.
Most of Imperial Beach's population stays out of the sea, where access has been restricted for around three years. Warning signs instructing swimmers to stay away are planted in the sand every 20 feet or so.
But people are falling ill anyway because the pollution is spreading through the air from the churn of the diseased river and crashing waves of the Pacific.
Every night, somewhere between midnight and 2am, the city is enveloped by a strong smell. It can happen during the day as well, albeit less commonly, leaving locals prisoners in their own homes.
Nobody can quite agree what the odour is: some compare it to rotten eggs, while others say it has a bitter chemical tang.
To TJ Jackson, who lives along the beachfront, it simply 'smells like Tijuana'.
The stench is the result of hydrogen sulphide emanating from the Tijuana River, according to Benjamin Rico, a PhD student studying the pollution at the University of California San Diego.
Typically, hydrogen sulphide levels are below one part per billion (ppb), and California has set a safe limit for children and pregnant women at 7.3ppb.
But Mr Rico shared research with The Telegraph showing hydrogen sulphide levels taken from one neighbourhood in Imperial Beach reached up to 4,500ppb. And it is just one of potentially thousands of pollutants being given off by the river, and spread over the rest of the county.
At one pollution hotspot on Saturn Boulevard identified by Mr Rico, the sulphur smell is overpowering.
Water pours out of a concrete pipe into an estuary, churning untreated sewage, chemicals and metals. Many of the nearby trees, their branches dipping low towards the water, are withered and black.
The area was deserted, with the exception of a young boy who cycled past with a T-shirt clamped over his mouth and nose.
Paloma Aguirre, the mayor of Imperial Beach, hit out at the response from Gavin Newsom, the California governor.
'He has not done enough,' she said. 'And it borderlines on gross negligence that he is actively refusing to help us, despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to the fact that we are really being harmed here.
'He hasn't done more than send a letter to [former US president Joe] Biden asking for more funding.'
A spokeswoman for Mr Newsom said Ms Aguirre's frustration was 'misdirected' because sewage infrastructure was 'under federal and international jurisdiction'.
She said the California governor had been a 'strong advocate' for Imperial Beach, and last year 'secured critical funding and support to address cross-border pollution from the Tijuana River while holding authorities accountable to expedited timelines'.
'We call on the Trump Administration to continue to fund repairs and complete infrastructure to protect public health and safety and end this environmental crisis once and for all,' she added.
So far, locals are quietly optimistic about Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who visited Imperial Beach in April and declared the sewage crisis was 'top of mind' for Mr Trump.
Mr Trump's administration submitted its plan to Mexico earlier this month, and the two governments are in the midst of thrashing out a deal that is expected to be concluded within weeks to upgrade sewage treatment facilities.
'We're literally going line by line on past agreements, and pressure testing everything to see what can be completed faster,' a US government source said.
'If it says five years, could it be done in two years? Could it be done in 100 days?'
To date, Mexico is said not to have rejected any of Washington's proposals, and negotiations have been spurred along by both Mr Trump and Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, who are 'committed to solving this problem'.
But the move comes too late for some Imperial Beach residents who have packed up and moved away, worn down by what they feel is years' worth of neglect from the government.
Among their number is Serge Dedina, Ms Aguirre's predecessor as mayor, who suffered sinus, ear and stomach infections and whose son required urgent care when he fell violently ill after swimming in the sewage-infested waters.
Ms Aguirre, however, plans to stick around and see what happens next to Imperial Beach.
'I can't leave – I'm the mayor,' she said. 'I go down with the ship. That's my responsibility.'
The Mexican government has been approached for comment.
