Cup of Chisme: What’s Causing the Stink?

A couple weeks ago we wrote about a notice that San Diego’s air quality regulators sent regarding stinky smells in the South Bay. Neighbors in Imperial Beach, San Ysidro and Palm City have been filing complaints about bad smells for a while.

Here’s one of those complaints: “This morning, the methane sewage smell was so intense that I physically gagged and my eyes started watering as I tried to drive to work. I could barely breathe.”

The San Diego Air Pollution Control District was putting the stink on a broken wastewater treatment plant on the U.S.-Mexico border that processes Tijuana’s sewage. Residents cheered that regulators were taking action.

But the agency they blamed, the International Boundary and Water Commission or IBWC, was like nope, you got the wrong guy.

Here’s the thing, while its wastewater treatment plant really is broken, IBWC isn’t wrong. The stink is coming from Tijuana’s sewage, as our MacKenzie Elmer reports.

“And so, another effort to hold the U.S. federal government accountable for the sewage crisis fell flat because the source of the problem involves the politically complex task of investing heavily in the infrastructure of a foreign city in a poorer country notorious for corruption,” Elmer wrote in her latest story.

What residents are saying: Elmer mapped out odor complaints in a handy stink map here. These are complaints submitted between July 21, 2024, and Aug. 8, 2024.

Read the full story here.

Another Stink Is Not as Stinky

Back when I was a community reporter at the San Diego Union-Tribune, residents in Barrio Logan often brought up how bad the air smelled. I lived there, so I also knew.

The newspaper went on to write about a company that many of my neighbors believed was the culprit behind the stink: New Leaf Biofuel. The company takes used cooking oil and turns it into motor fuel. That process, residents complained, was the culprit behind the vomit-like smells they had to deal with every day.

The San Diego Air Pollution Control District started cracking down on New Leaf Biofuel two years ago. They required the company to do something about the smell. Residents also resisted the company’s plans to expand its operations in their neighborhood.

From Nov. 21, 2021, to Aug. 13. 2024, the district got a total of 84 odor complaints. Of those, 52 came in after the district ordered the company to fix the issue, and only seven of those are from this year, a spokesperson with the district told me.

Last week, I got a letter from the regulators with an update.

New Leaf Biofuel has reduced and gotten rid of some of its operations that cause the bad smell. It also installed odor-mitigating equipment. The district is recommending to lift the order that required the corrections. There’s a public hearing about it on Aug. 22. at the agency’s office.

Thank You, Composting Fairy

A kind Cup of Chisme reader sent me a little gift: compostable food scrap bags.

If you read my last newsletter, you know I got real honest about my struggles with recycling food waste. It’s something the city of San Diego wants us all to do. But I’ve struggled to do my part.

A reader sent me a nice note and a couple of bags. Thank you! Our environment reporter MacKenzie Elmer warned me that I may not be able to actually use them to throw my scraps in the larger bin (lame). She’s going to look into how compostable those bags really are in her upcoming newsletter the Environment Report (subscribe here). But I can use these and put them in my freezer when my kitchen pail is full.

More Chisme to Start Your Week

We had a busy week. If you missed some of these Voice of San Diego stories, I recommend catching up now with some cafecito.

• Investigation: Will Huntsberry dropped a new investigation into one of the county’s largest foster care service providers. He found that New Alternatives is sending millions to a charity based in Montana. That charity has done two things that we know of: be involved in the funding of one study and pay New Alternatives’ CEO millions. Read the story here.
• There are a lot of big leadership openings at the county. That means the new top boss Ebony Shelton will have a shot at creating her dream team. But that’s not great news for everyone. As our Lisa Halverstadt reported, at least one person has been demoted, Michael Vu. He used to run elections for the county until he was promoted to assistant chief administrative officer. Now he’s back to overseeing the elections office as a deputy CAO. He took a $85,000 annual pay cut. Read more here.
• An East County school district is testing a new state law that bans districts from requiring district staff to tell parents if their child is going by a different name or pronouns. Here’s what you need to know.
• We dropped a special episode of the VOSD Podcast last week. It’s an interview with mayoral candidate Larry Turner. Listen to what he had to say here.