Mexico's Toxic Waters Impact California | Jim Desmond

Many people don't know about this, but San Diego is facing a sewage crisis that's actually starting from Tijuana. It's coming and hitting the beaches of San Diego. One beach in San Diego was closed for over a thousand days. It's over three years. It's not just sewage, it's also chemicals and anything else. Some of the maquiladoras are entering. So we're seeing not just sewage, but a lot of other dangerous chemicals that are just being thrown into this canal that ends up in the United States. My guest today is Jim Desmond, who's a county supervisor in San Diego. Today he's here to tell us what's happening with this sewage crisis in San Diego. I'm Siamak Khorrami. Welcome to California Insider. Jim, it's great to have you back on. Welcome back. Siamak, glad to be here. Thanks for having me. There is a crisis in San Diego County that we have covered. Actually, it's in the southern side, and you're a county supervisor in San Diego. The beach, one of the beaches, has been closed for over a thousand days, Imperial Beach. A really good surfing spot. And what's the situation right now? Well, the situation right now is we're still being overwhelmed with sewage coming across the border from Tijuana into our estuaries here in southern San Diego County. And it's polluting the waterways. We do have a sewage treatment plant there that is paid for by the federal government that is treating some of the sewage. There's so much coming across that, unfortunately, it's making its way all the way to our beaches. And Imperial Beach, which is the southernmost beach in San Diego County, like you said, it's been closed for over three years. No one can go in the water. And it's not just right there. That sewage also kind of makes its way upstream. There's a little eddy right there around the coast where it goes up into Coronado, where the Coronado, which is the famous Coronado Hotel, is located. There's some days that their beaches also have been closed. And we also have a very sensitive area where our United States Navy SEALs, they train in those same waters in a lagoon within the bay. And that is becoming contaminated as well. We've been having people getting sick. And so we're trying to make, we need this site cleaned up. We need to have Mexico stop dumping sewage into the United States. And we need to put an end to that. According to some reports, we were told that this is actually going airborne. And now it's in the air, in that area, right? Well, it's just the stench. And it's not just sewage. It's also chemicals and anything else. There's these huge cement swales, you know, to collect water. L.A., they have these big swales, you see, for the collecting of the water and things like that. It goes right through the Tijuana, through the eastern portion of Tijuana. And it just ends this big, huge swale, which is several miles long and has a couple of forks that feed into it, end up in our country, where this is sewage and contamination. And some of the maquiladoras are entering and just throwing some of their chemicals and things like that. So we're seeing not just sewage, but a lot of other dangerous chemicals that are just being thrown into this canal that ends up in the United States. And so we've been attempting to clean that up, but we just can't keep up with it. And whenever there's a big rain or a big storm, we're deluged with it. And unfortunately, it's closed. You're right, it's in the air now. One of the things the county has done, but it hasn't made much of a dent, is put air purifiers in people's homes or pay for those purifiers. But, you know, it may make that one little small area smell a little bit better. But it's just the cure is fixing and stopping the flow of the fuel, the sewage and contaminants that are coming across. And does that have to be through the federal government or? So there's been a lot of finger pointing going back and forth as to whose problem this really is. The county of San Diego, we've been looking to the state. The state hasn't been able to do anything about it. This is an international border. And so I really think the federal government needs to step up with this. And now with the new administration and the new EPA administrator, it appears that they have recently changed their mind and may be considering this site as a Superfund site, which means hopefully money and or resources will come in to clean this up. But we really have to stop the flow coming from Mexico. If we clean it up and it's still coming in, it's kind of a waste of money. We have to stop the flow and clean it up. Now, what about Mexico? And I mean, they have challenges. You guys talk to them. Well, right now we have had some agreements with Tijuana. We actually, the federal government funds a wastewater facility site. We actually have a sewage treatment plant site in the U.S. that has pipes coming underneath the border from the central part of Tijuana. And we are actually treating their sewage. But the capacity of this plant is only about, I guess, 25,000 gallons per day. But we're really getting about 50,000 gallons a day. And it doesn't really pick up all of the contaminants that are coming through the Tijuana River. So we have had some agreements. We are currently paying for and treating some of their sewage right now. But we can't handle the amounts that are coming across. We're getting what's being piped in. But what's being just dumped into these big open swales, these concrete swales, is anybody's guess. And that's where we're getting most of the contaminants. Now, some of this is actually going and hitting some of the beaches in Tijuana too, right? Absolutely. Because the sewage is actually going to that whole area. Absolutely. There's like three sections of Tijuana. There's the section right by the water near the ocean. And unfortunately, that is actually going directly out into the ocean, in some cases, untreated. There's a central part of Tijuana, which is actually, they are putting that central part of Tijuana, that sewage, is coming to the treatment plant on the U.S. side. And we're treating that. On the eastern section of Tijuana is where these big swales are, these big concrete swales that are used to divert water. But those are coming from the eastern section. So there's like three different problem areas within Tijuana. One is it's going directly into the water. And the other way, it's from the eastern side going into the water, but via the Tijuana River on the U.S. side of the border. Can you tell us about the Navy SEALs training? Because this is a pretty famous site, right? The Navy SEALs train in San Diego Bay, which is just north of this site where this estuary is, and the Tijuana River is. And so there is some of that bacteria makes its way into the south end of the San Diego Bay. And the SEALs, they're in the water a lot, and they train there. And unfortunately, we've been hearing that they've been moving some of their training elsewhere, or they haven't been able to train in certain maneuvers based on the contamination of the water and things like that. So this is really impacting as a national security issue for us and for our training base in San Diego Bay. But it is, I think, one of the biggest natural disasters that's taking place here in the country that most people don't even realize it. But we're getting, you know, Tijuana is a huge, densely packed city, and the amount of sewage and contaminants entering our country and contaminating our bay and beaches has gone on for too long. And that Navy SEAL training, it's pretty complex, right? The way they do this training in the water, and they have to be there in hours and different types of exercises. All times of the day and night and all sorts. Yes, it's very intense, heavy training. And as the name SEAL would imply, they're in the water a lot. We gotta have clean water for these brave people to train in. So that's just another reason. We're a big Navy town also. The entire bay, we've got a lot of Navy ships and military ships and things like that. We can't be having contaminated water in the Bay of San Diego or even along our beaches to fulfill that part of our U.S. national defense. When we looked into this, some people told us NAFTA is part of this because we are putting these maculodoras in Tijuana and they're making stuff for us, but then they are polluting the water and sending it. Well, and this is just only things that I've heard, the maculodoras are doing this. I don't have that for facts. I don't have that actual data, but that's what we're hearing. But some of the stuff that's coming through looks like it does originate in some factories within Tijuana. So it could be a NAFTA issue, but I really think we've gotta be able to put the pressure on Mexico. We've even thought in San Diego County is maybe we should sue Mexico. Well, a county suing another country, it would just be a whole bunch of money thrown at lawyers and probably nothing really getting done. I think this administration needs to use the leverage that we have with Mexico and say, look, you have to stop putting this sewage and these contaminants. We can no longer have them come into our country. I mean, to me, we should put a dam up across this thing. I mean, it's something we could stop, but then it would all stay in Tijuana. Maybe that's the answer, but we gotta be able to have some leverage. And I'm hoping with the new administration, the Trump administration, that they have that capability of saying before we do anything else or have any other types of agreements or maybe agreements on tariffs or things like that, this should be part of the equation. So this stops and they stop polluting their beaches and our beaches. Now, there is a plant, the plant you mentioned over there, there was some money going to expand this plant. How long does it take for some project like that to happen? I think it's gonna take at least five years to do that. This plant has been there for several years. This plant was given initial dollars to treat the sewage and it can only handle, like I said, like 25,000 gallon. So there has been new money that came actually out of the Biden administration, which is good for the, it's like $650 million, but it's one-time money. What this plant was missing was the ongoing maintenance money to keep things going and to keep it in operation. So there is more money to double the size, but it's still not near enough. And again, this is only the sewage pipes that are coming from Tijuana that this plant is treating. The Tijuana River bypasses this plant and what goes into the Tijuana River from these big concrete swales does not get treated unless there's a big rain event and it overflows into it. The Tijuana River actually goes around this plant. The Tijuana River does not feed into the plant for the treatment. So even this expansion would not impact the sewage that's coming through the Tijuana River? And it has no impact on cleaning our beaches. Wow. Because the problem with the beaches is the river itself and we have to stop that from coming. And do you think it's realistic, do you think Mexico is able to stop that, even if you put a dam there, but where would the water go? It would stay in their concrete swales and they'd be stuck with it, which then they would have to deal with the problem. Right now we're having to, this is like a neighbor, sewage coming out of their house into your yard. I don't know if damming it up is the right answer, but to me that would be extreme. But what's been happening to us has been extreme in closing off our beaches. The right solution, I think, is we got to put leverage on Mexico to stop this and maybe we do a joint dam or something like that, or it's only clean water or that water has to be treated in Mexico before it is released into the United States. Some of you may be wondering, why are we talking about Shen Yun on California Insider? It's a dance about China, but ancient China. I'm a big fan of Shen Yun. I've been to it 14 times. Every year I go. The first time I went to Shen Yun, it was so amazing, it was so uplifting. The colors, the energy, they put you into scenes of thousands of years ago and you feel like how the ancient people lived and you get to appreciate the history of humanity. There's a lot more to this show. It's going to be here in Southern California and I want to make sure you guys go see it. You don't want to miss this show. You have to see it at least once and make sure to tell us what you think afterwards. It was spectacular, so beautiful. Gosh, I thought I was going to heaven. Oh, it was electric. I'm getting chills talking about it. It gets a 10 from me, that's for sure. It was that good. Absolutely marvelous. Hands down the best show I've ever seen. And now, Jim, this seems like a perfect scenario of a lot of bureaucracy. You know, the city is trying to figure it out, county, you guys have been involved with it, the state, and now the federal government. What can people, based on what you see, there's a new federal administration, you've been working with the state, you guys are working on it in the county. What can people expect the next steps will be? Well, I've heard that the new EPA director has agreed to come out and visit. I mean, that's a first. And the recent reversal of the, this is not a Superfund site, maybe we can have it as a Superfund site. So that means money and resources hopefully will be directed towards this effort and we can get this fixed. I think it's finally the federal government after many, many, many years is stepping up and taking responsibility or hopefully is going to take that responsibility. This is federal land. It's coming across a federal border. It needs to be stopped. So I actually, I think there's some hope. It's not fixed completely, but I think there's light at the end of the tunnel with this new administration coming in and looking at this and taking it seriously and saying, this has got to stop and this needs to be cleaned up. Now, if Mexico decides to not do anything, is it possible for us to solve this with money on the river side of it? Well, then I think then I would look at potentially we put a dam and we dam it up and we say, no, you can no longer put this so you can put a dam in the U.S. and then it would- Well, it would stay then all in Mexico, but then the water on our side, the estuary on our side, which with clean water could be, you know, could be a nice and pristine place. That would be the ideal situation instead of damming it up because that's going to stop all the water and all the flow. But this is like an estuary. It's a marshy land and things like that. I'd like to see that go back to pristine. So really the correct answer is not having any contaminants flow across the border or sewage flow across the border. The water can still flow across because it does. It is a natural river and this is the natural flow, but except for the concrete swales. But I think the best answer is it's treated before it comes across the border. Now, an issue like this for a county size of San Diego, is it a really big issue that financially, what does it look like for San Diego financially? They are not able to deal with this on their own, right? Is that- Well, we do not have the funds or resources to take on a project this big. We just don't have that. So the federal government's going to have to step up and fix the issue. We just, we don't have that. We don't set money aside for Tijuana sewage every year. We don't have a funding mechanism for that. But I think this is a federal issue and hopefully I'm glad EPA is finally recognizing it's a problem and it needs to be fixed. We actually went down to this beach and met with Serge Dedina, who's a former mayor of Imperial Beach. Here's how it went. This beach should be filled with people. This is the most important economic asset we have in Southern California. It's a free asset. It should bring us joy. Instead, it's making us sick. People aren't coming here as tourists. People are losing their businesses. It's a huge, huge environmental and public health, economic and national security crisis. Can you tell us about the fact people are losing their businesses? Is it because people are not coming to the beach? Yeah, people aren't coming to the beach. Do you see anybody here? If you were in Mission Beach or Santa Monica or Manhattan Beach or La Jolla, the beach is packed in the morning. I was the mayor and brought record investment to Imperial Beach over an eight-period, new hotels, new restaurants, and some of them are closing and the hotels are losing business, which means our city loses tax revenue because who wants to come to a beach when it's closed? Why would you spend $300 on a night on a hotel or an Airbnb if you can't go in the water? I wouldn't and I was the mayor. That's the problem, but it's also a problem because the beach is our main street, our down-home plaza. It's where everybody comes together. So imagine what happens when the place you go to connect with your friends and families and experience the happiest times of your life now becomes a place that makes you sick. The place that you may have gotten married on the beach or you may have taken your mom. I get emotional thinking about it because my mom had cancer and she was dying. You take her to the beach, right? And I've talked to so many people like that. They'll walk on the pier. Sorry, it's just, think about 50 years of what we've lost here and you can't do that anymore because the place you want to connect with your friends and family and then nature is gone. The place where you spent your entire lifetime with your kids and your parents and your friends and every day is now a toxic death zone, right? And so it's just awful that that's happening. So one of the most devastating things I've ever seen is we had sewage released into the National Wildlife Refuge here at the Tijuana Estuary. It's a California marine protected area and a US Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Refuge. The oxygen levels dropped to zero because of the sewage and all the leopard sharks died. We have leopard sharks here, beautiful animals, friendly, docile, beautiful. All of them, hundreds of leopard sharks died. A state park employee told me just the other day, huge amounts of fish died off in the estuary because of oxygen levels going down to zero because sewage is going into this, what is the National Wildlife Refuge. So it's a huge impact on animal health. We have blue whales and gray whales, humpback whales, orcas offshore here. This is a, it's called the Blue Super Highway. Animals come down the California coast and go to Mexico and even the Galapagos. Got guys fishing offshore, lobster being harvested. So all that's being impacted by this toxic sewage. You were the mayor for many years and you will be working on it. Yeah. What was the outcome? Did you talk to the mayor? So the irony and the tragedy contradiction of all this is that we won the battle to fix this problem. So when I was mayor, we filed a lawsuit along with the state of California, the city of Chula Vista, the port of San Diego, the city of San Diego and the Surfrider Foundation. Against the International Boundary and Water Commission, a federal agency, because they were violating the Clean Water Act and we said they needed to clean up. We won that battle. The Justice Department negotiated a settlement and we got President Trump and Nancy Pelosi negotiated the US Free Trade Agreement, the USMCA Agreement, and they put $300 million in the budget for the EPA. We did that in 2017 and 2019, we won. But the planning process has now taken over five years. So for five years, they've been talking about doing something, but they haven't done anything. And meanwhile, the Tijuana sewer system has just basically fallen apart. When was it that you guys realized this is a bigger disaster than a local issue? Because it's been going on for a long time. It's been going on, yeah, for decades. Was there a turning point that you started noticing? We've known it's there and it's for a long, long time. I just think there's finally that momentum. Even I represent North County, San Diego, which is not even part of my district. But the fact that this is negatively impacting the entire county, we've all kind of come on board. Normally it has just primarily been the South Bay County Supervisor. But now we're all on board saying this is a disaster. This has to change and has to fix. And I do think, I think the biggest turning point really, to be honest with you, is the Trump administration coming in. Because for the last four years with the Biden administration, we weren't getting any help. And matter of fact, we had an EPA person come to one of our board meetings, our county board of supervisors meeting, telling us this is not a Superfund site. It can't be a Superfund site, primarily because they weren't finding certain contaminants that define Superfund sites. But the sewage is not one of the contaminants for a Superfund site is what we were told. And what they wanted to do was more studies on this. And I got frustrated with the EPA person at the meeting said, we do not need any more studies. We know what the problem is. We need a fix. And I was able to get that out at the meeting several months ago. And now with a new administration coming in and a new EPA administrator, we're getting the attention that I think this needs. We just hope there's the follow-up to fix the problem. And for the money that was allocated to this, during Biden administration, there was money allocated, but did this money come from Congress or did it? I couldn't tell you what fund or where it came out of, but I know it was a big number, like 650 million, but that's only to double the size of the sewage treatment plant that does not interact with the Tijuana River. So essentially, it's not really a fix to the issue we're... No, it's a temporary Band-Aid is what it is. And it's good that we'll be able to process more sewage from Tijuana, but unfortunately, that, like, as I said, is connected directly to Tijuana, whereas this Tijuana River bypasses that. So it's not connected at all, and no matter how much capacity that site has, it's not gonna impact. It doesn't take water directly from the Tijuana River, except in a large rain event or storm, then it overflows, and then some of it may go into that plant. But that plant only really directly manages or treats the sewage that is piped in into the plant from Tijuana. The Tijuana River is another source of the contaminants and things like that, that people just can throw whatever they want into these concrete swales. And it will end up in the ocean. And eventually, it ends up in the US. Now, the funding that came for that site, is it because Tijuana is growing and they needed more capacity for- Yeah, well, the original plant, when it was put in, I'm not sure how long ago it was put in, could only hold, it could manage so much capacity. We're getting at least twice that capacity now. So that money is going to manage the sewage that we are picking up from Tijuana, but not from the Tijuana River. And that's really kind of the hard thing for people to understand is, we've got this plant, why isn't it treating it? Maybe we make the plant four or five times the size, it's still the Tijuana River goes around it. There's like three sections, like I mentioned the Tijuana. And so this is taking care of the middle section. And are you guys united on this, as on the county support? I think so, yeah. And the Board of Supervisors, this is good. But it depends, if we have to put in money, it's not in our budget or anything like that. But as supporting the effort, I think we are 100% on board with this. If we were disappointed, it wasn't a super fun site, but glad to hear the new administration changed, that says, yes, it is. And we're going to try to fix it. There is another site in your area, in Costa Rio, in San Ofre, the nuclear site. Should there be concerns environmentally about that? Well, absolutely. And it's unfortunate that is not getting the attention it needs either from the federal government. San Onofre was shut down in 2013. So over a decade ago, and it's slowly being dismantled. But when all these nuclear sites were set up in the United States, it was up to Congress to come up with a site for the spent nuclear fuel to be stored. The spent nuclear fuel lasts for thousands of years, is staying hot, is staying radioactive and things like that. And none of the sites in the United States were built to store or manage this spent nuclear fuel. Well, unfortunately, Congress, it took them a while. They did act in the 1980s. They proposed, it was voted on to put this spent nuclear fuel inside of Yucca Mountain, which is a mountain, you know, several, I don't know the exact distance, but quite a ways outside of Las Vegas in Nevada, in a desert area, to dry area. About $15 million was spent 15 years ago to dig this hole in the ground. And it's supposed to be safe. It was, you know, researched as environmentally and seismically and as far as not contaminating water tables and things like that. So a lot of time and effort went into finding this site in Yucca Mountain. And that's where spent nuclear fuel was gonna be going. And unfortunately, the Senator at the time, Harry Reid, shut it down. They took all the money that, you know, the $15 billion and all the jobs and everything that was created in Nevada, they kept all that money, but this hole in the ground is vacant now. It's not being used. So what's happening is all these nuclear sites throughout the country are having to store nuclear waste on site. There's about 120 large caskets. It's about a story and a half tall, these big, large canisters or containers. They look like they're stainless steel, but I think it's something even stronger than that, that is containing and holding the spent nuclear fuel. So there's about 120 of those in cement at San Onofre that are vented because they're giving off heat. But that, in those canisters, are like within 20, 30 yards of the ocean. And they're sitting on a fault line that a nuclear power plant, San Onofre is. It's sitting on a fault line. It's very close to, you know, the ocean. And it's very close to Oceanside, which has about 180,000 people, San Clemente, which has about 75,000 people. And the normal winds blow from the ocean, you know, on shore. So if there's any, you know, towards the inland, if there's any sort of a leak or something like that or catastrophic, you know, it potentially puts a lot of people's lives in danger and at risk. So this, in these canisters, the life of the canisters themselves are only about 100 years. But what's inside of them is gonna last thousands of years. So we're kicking this problem down to our, you know, the next generation. If we still don't have a safe place to store this, what do we do? Because these canisters are gonna have to be either broken down or they're gonna start breaking down themselves. What I'm hoping for, and keeping my fingers crossed, is we'll get another, you know, Einstein or another Elon or some other type of person that has the technology to maybe reuse this spent nuclear fuel, because it's still giving off heat. It's not as much as it was, but it's still giving off, you know, whatever it is it gives off that's dangerous to us. So maybe we can figure out ways to use it. That would be, I think, the best hope. But it's Congress's responsibility of finding a place to store it. And they have not come through. Yucca Mountain, once that got taken away by Harry Reid, Congress has not come up with another site to place or to put the spent nuclear fuel that is being stored throughout the country. So they're all sitting there and sitting in San Onofre. Well, San Onofre only has San Onofre. Yeah. So all the nuclear sites throughout the country are storing the spent fuel on site, which they were never built to do. So ideally, this administration should come up with a plan to deal with it. That would be nice. That would be very nice. Or put it in the Yucca Mountain, where we already have got, you know... Actually, I did hear, though, I think that even Yucca Mountain, with all the amount of spent nuclear fuel that's out there, would only take about half of what we have. So we've got a problem on our hands. And unfortunately, there is no urgency because it's safely stored for now. There's nothing, no disaster. There's no disaster. And these canisters still have, you know, 100 years or whatever, 75, 80 years of life left in them. There hasn't been the urgency. But I do think we need to... I said, the best hope is technology comes up or catches up and says, if we figure out a way to use this and get it to a state where it's inert or it's not dangerous to people. I don't know if we'll ever get there. But right now, the short-term plan has a very long-term problematically. Some of these sites are operational. Is there a difference between the ones that are operational and they're not operational? No, just the ones are still storing. There has been a couple instances. I think it was Norway and Sweden have actually been able to store their spent nuclear fuel right near the current plants. But they've been able to store them and dig down underground and store them locally. One of the biggest problems is nobody wants spent nuclear fuel near them. Nobody wants to put, you know, in their communities. So what's the risk with that? Is that another potential radioactive explosion or is it like environmental? Well, radioactive leaks or something like that. I don't know if it'd be an explosion, but if it might be a target, you know, for terrorist targets or things like that, we don't want to have happen. But we've got to figure out a way, what to do with this material and a safe place to put it. Because right now we don't have it. And maybe we launch it into space and we launch it into the sun or, you know, there's been a lot of different ideas. But this is an issue that's going to have to be dealt with. And I think the sooner we get, you know, those wheels turning, the better. But it's an issue that's out there and every nuclear plant has it. And there's a lot of talk about having data centers in California where they would have small nuclear sites with them. So this is going to be an issue for them. Well, and I guess nuclear isn't as, the byproduct is bad, but it's, apparently nuclear itself is cleaner than coal, is cleaner than other things, except for the, you know, the byproduct that's just sitting around. We got to figure out what to do with that. And I think I'm in favor of nuclear, but we have to have a way to clean up the waste and what, or a way to reuse that waste. Hopefully technology will take care of that, but we got to come up with some other solutions. Jim Desmond, County Supervisor from San Diego. It was great to have you on California Insider. CMAC, glad to be here again. It's always fun. Let us know what your thoughts are in this sewage crisis in San Diego. Do you think enough people know about this? And tell us your thoughts. You can always reach out to me at cmac.californiainsider.com or comment. We read all of your comments and emails. We'll see you next time. And this is CMAC Kourami with California Insider.