Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre has spent her career fighting foul water and noxious smells of cross border pollution on the San Diego coast. She recently landed a new position as vice chair of the Coastal Commission. Aguirre was appointed to the commission to fill a partial term left open when state Sen. Steve Padilla was elected to the legislature in 2022. She’ll have to be reappointed when that term ends in May.
I originally called her to discuss her Coastal Commission role, but days later she decided to seek a bigger platform for her border pollution efforts, with a campaign for county supervisor, which could give her even more tools to tackle those problems.
Aguirre is one of several local leaders seeking the seat that San Diego County Supervisor Nora Vargas will leave when her term expires next week. It’s likely to be a crowded field. Other contenders who have announced intentions to run include San Diego City Councilmember Vivian Moreno, Chula Vista Councilmember Carolina Chavez and Chula Vista Mayor John McCann.
On Dec. 20 Vargas announced plans to resign after winning re-election in November, citing personal safety and security reasons. The Board of Supervisors are expected to decide next week whether to appoint a replacement or hold a special election.
Aguirre says the position could give her more leverage to secure emergency aid for the decades-long wastewater pollution problem that has sickened residents, harmed marine life and closed Imperial Beach for nearly three years, before it finally reopened in September.
“This is a crisis that is affecting our coastal resources, our coastal access and certainly it’s the biggest environmental injustice in the nation,” Aguirre said.
How Aguirre Entered the Wastewater Wars
Aguirre began her battle against cross-border pollution while working for the environmental nonprofit WILDCOAST for a decade. In 2018 she won a seat on the Imperial Beach City Council, and in 2022 she was elected mayor.
Swimmers and surfers have long complained of illnesses caused by sewage and industrial waste drifting from Tijuana up the San Diego coast. Last year researchers found that the pollution was not only waterborne, but also airborne, prompting odor alerts for those communities.
Aguirre describes her own problems, suffering chest pain and shortness of breath, and waking in the middle of the night to “smelling what you experience in a Porta-potty.”
She has pushed for more extensive monitoring and better health services for people affected, as well as fixes for deteriorating sewage treatment plants and the Tijuana River itself. That included lobbying for the San Antonio de los Buenos Wastewater Treatment Plant in Mexico, which will soon treat 18 million gallons of sewage per day.
“After many years of advocacy we were able to persuade Mexico to fix it,” she said. “It will come on line at the end of next month.”
Last year she formed a task force to study whether people were getting sick without direct contact with the water. In October, she asked the CDC to assess air quality, after researchers detected high levels of hydrogen sulfide in the area. But the response hasn’t reflected the urgency she thinks is needed.
“We haven’t gotten results yet,” she said. “We need medical interventions, people testing kids’ blood at schools.”
She said the county also needs to complete an economic impact report on the sewage problem.
In December she visited Washington D.C. to rescue $250 million slated for repairs to the deteriorating South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, which was in jeopardy amid the federal budget standoff. Later that month President Joe Biden signed a spending plan including the money.
To secure that investment she met with members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, including former Navy Seals who had trained at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado and knew the pollution issue firsthand.
“To me it’s very clear, this is a bipartisan issue, it affects us all, and we have to work together,” Aguirre said.
How Other Democrats Have Responded
However, Aguirre, a Democrat, has met resistance from members of her own party, including Vargas, whom she hopes to replace.
Our Jim Hinch reported that Vargas got on the wrong side of Aguirre and the Imperial Beach Democratic Club for minimizing the impact of border pollution.
Aguirre has also challenged Gov. Gavin Newsom for declining to declare an emergency over the cross-border sewage problem. She said such a declaration would bring state public health resources and enable officials to tackle pollution from the Tijuana River.
“We need a state of emergency so we can divert the river and treat it,” she said.
Its flows aren’t treated by either of the two sewage treatment plants, but Aguirre said they should be reconfigured to handle pollution from the river as well as urban waste.
Aguirre has been frustrated by county, state and federal officials who she thinks downplay the hazards to Imperial Beach residents.
“It’s a whole year and a half of insufficient data and (officials) making these broad statements that everything is okay, when those of us who live in these areas know it’s not okay,” she said.
If she wins Vargas’ seat, Aguirre would be able to direct county public health resources toward the problem.
In the meantime, she’ll call attention to border pollution issues through the Coastal Commission, which oversees land use and development on the California Coast. As vice chair, she said she’ll work with the incoming chair, Santa Cruz County Supervisor Justin Cummings, on border pollution and other issues such as improving public access and housing in the Coastal Zone.
“I have a bigger platform and a bigger megaphone as vice chair,” she said.
Sanctuary Cities in Legal Jeopardy, Trump Ally Says
Donald Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller warned San Diego leaders that they could be “criminally liable” if they get in the way of planned immigration raids, Cal Matters’ Wendy Fry and Jeanne Kuang reported, They cited a Dec. 23 letter from Miller’s America First Legal Foundation stating “We have identified San Diego County as a sanctuary jurisdiction that is violating federal law.”
Miller was a polarizing figure in the last Trump administration; a group of congressional leaders condemned him as a white nationalist in 2020, while commentators ridiculed him for allegedly wearing spray-on hair on TV interviews.
The recent letter was particularly jarring because Miller doesn’t hold a federal position yet, although Trump tapped him to serve as a future Homeland Security advisor. “This is a scare tactic, plain and simple,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office responded.
Pandas Win Top Honors at Rose Parade
The San Diego Zoo’s newly arrived pandas wowed judges at the Rose Parade in Pasadena this week. The Zoo claimed the Sweepstakes Trophy for the most beautiful entry for the second year in a row, with a float featuring the giant pandas, Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, playing in their new home.
The pandas arrived to fanfare in August under a conservation agreement with China. Zoo scientists are helping their Chinese counterparts track, breed and study giant pandas and even creating a giant panda milk formula for captive-raised cubs, the zoo reported.
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.