San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer said Tuesday that she immediately will pursue a federal Superfund designation for the Tijuana River Valley.
She will bypass her colleagues, she said in a statement, after they voted Tuesday to delay a formal decision on seeking the designation.
Lawson-Remer said she will team up with other elected officials to seek help from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, including Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, National City Mayor Ron Morrison and Marcus Bush, of the National City City Council.
The supervisor said Jack Shu, chairman of the San Diego Air Pollution Control District, will also participate.
“We are submitting an immediate petition to the EPA requesting a Superfund designation,” Lawson-Remer said. “I hope my colleagues will join us after their report comes back in 90 days.”
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 3-2 to have county leaders review and report back to the board on options for cleaning up the South County region, including a possible Superfund designation, for the EPA clean up contaminated areas.
Lawson-Remer, who issued a board letter asking for the designation Tuesday, voted no on the motion for further review, as did Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe.
Concerns have grown about pollution – including sewage spills, contaminated beaches and noxious odors – in the Tijuana River Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border. A damaged wastewater treatment plant in Baja California is considered the main cause.
In a statement, board chair Nora Vargas said the county “cannot afford to delay” coordinated efforts between the U.S. Congressional delegation and local cities in connection with fixing wastewater treatment facilities.
During the Tuesday meeting, Vargas said she wasn’t opposed to EPA involvement, but she said the process could take decades before any meaningful clean-up begins.
She added that Superfund doesn’t address the international pollution issue, which has resulted in cross-border cooperation.
If the pollution source isn’t solved, “we won’t be able to change a thing,” Vargas said.
In a statement after the vote, Montgomery Steppe said making the Tijuana River Valley a Superfund site would simply give the county “another tool to combat the decades-long environmental injustice.”
During a public comment period, Laura Wilkinson Sinton, a cofounder of Stop the Sewage and a candidate for Coronado City Council, asked supervisors to share residents’ sense of urgency.
“We are not pointing fingers,” said Sinton, who also backed Lawson-Remer’s proposal. “We are waiting for help.”
In other board action on border pollution, supervisors voted unanimously in favor of a proposal to obtain thousands of air purifiers for affected South County residents. Those in the city of Imperial Beach and Tijuana River Valley communities such as Nestor will be eligible.
