S1: Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. On today's show , from the beaches to our tap , we're talking about the quality of our water. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. An annual report about California water quality lists six local beaches as some of the dirtiest in the state. The list , from nonprofit heal the Bay , puts the Tijuana River mouth at the top. More than 44 billion gallons of raw sewage flowed across the US-Mexico border into San Diego County in 2023. That's according to a new report by the International Boundary and Water Commission. This year's volumes could easily top that. Big storms have overwhelmed an already damaged sewer system. Joining me now to discuss water quality across the San Diego region is Michael Beaudry. He is an associate professor of environmental and ocean sciences at the University of San Diego , and he's been studying marine pollution in San Diego and Baja California for more than 25 years. Professor , welcome to Midday Edition.
S2: Thank you Jane. I'm looking forward to this conversation to tell you more about what's going on with marine pollution in San Diego.
S1: So glad you're here. So pollution at the Tijuana River mouth has been a decades long problem.
S2: I was just talking to one of my colleagues today , and there's a 40 to 50 million gallons per day because the system has broken down and the canyons are overwhelmed with pollution , and the beaches around there are completely closed. So this continues to be a problem that affects our beaches , especially at the border and even in Imperial Beach.
S1: So talk about this as a climate story.
S2: So we're getting them at different times of year , and we're also getting bigger storms. Think of the one that hit in February and caused all the flooding , for example. So it's overwhelming the system that's already stressed. If the system and if the International Water Boundary Commission system breaks down , you have a technical issue and then you have an environmental issue when you're adding the storms. It's predicted that storms in San Diego County are going to be more unpredictable but larger when they hit , as we saw with the February 1st. So if we have flooding on top of our regular issues , it's just going to make the conditions worse and for longer periods of time.
S1:
S2: It affects the ecosystem in and of itself. It can't rebound , but it's really not good for for the system in the long term. It is particularly problematic for humans. That includes not only swimming , which I think people have been aware of for a long time , but some new studies coming out from Sdsu and from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are showing that there is actually aerosol problems. So there's actually the air itself is having issues or getting more health problems. People are getting sick. So we're getting an increase in health. You consider the fact that , you know , the Silver Strand and Imperial Beach have been closed for almost 800 days now. This is going to affect the system , and that could be a problem as far as how quickly it can recover. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. We'll talk a bit more about that.
S2: So if you be walking on the beach or if you're in the area , it can affect you as you're breathing , not just as you're swimming or getting contact , which the problem has always been contact. People are in the water , but now it's actually happening. If you're actually walking around on the beach or even close to the shore. So it's affecting people in a much wider scale , and it's something that has been coming up more and more. And it includes not only the the bacteria itself in the water , but all the other mixtures of , of pollutants that can be then put up into the air and then breathed in by people. So you've got that impact , and you got the fact that if you're walking , if you're in the water itself , you can't be there for too long because a contact could cause an issue with anybody that's swimming or boating or working , um , you know , along the border. That includes everything from people walking around to the border patrol to the military. It affects any accounting in so many different ways. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Well , I mean , for years , Imperial Beach has been asking for an emergency declaration by the federal government to get this cleaned up.
S2: I don't know if it's stalling , per se. A lot of it is just the the complication of bureaucracy. And our local congressional team has been able to secure funding. There's been a lot of money coming in from the federal government to repair the IWC. Scott Peters has got some extra money added to the group that already worked there to make it happen. And that's , you know , almost two years now since the money is there and nothing's actually been spent to get it to go through. I think what you're dealing with is so many different layers of bureaucracy. I think the other big problem is that it's not viewed as an emergency anymore. Right ? It's viewed as kind of it's a day to day thing. And I think we've lost the fact that this is an urgency , we've lost the fact that it's affecting people's health , people's day to day activities. It's not just the people that are going to go use the water as a recreational activity. It's your your day to day life. And I think that's one of the biggest issues that has changed is that if you remember in the news , you'd get an event like this and it'd be all over the news that we were closing down a beach , and now it's happening every day , and it seems to have lost that sense of urgency. And so I think that's part of what's happening is they're not moving quickly because it seems to be sort of just in the background. Now , that's one problem. And I think the as I said , the big one is that there are too many layers of bureaucracy to get through. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. Well , other beaches listed in the report from heal the Bay include Playa Blanca in Baja , Mexico , and El Faro , also in Baja.
S2: The water is coming down in different ways. My colleague Dina , from Lagos and former mayor of Ibi , was telling me this morning that it's coming down into the canyons all over these beaches there already , so you have even less infrastructure there. You have less political support. You know , as much as I know we've been working hard in San Diego. We have had a lot of activity from local governments , a lot of activity from the the nonprofit groups , from the universities in Mexico. You don't have that push to protect it. So you have the natural conditions of the water coming down the canyons and the pollution coming through. And really not a political push to make a difference in general.
S1:
S2: It tends to get worse in our rainy season because we're going to be moving things more and more. What's happening ? Unfortunate. Do you want a border for sure right now is that it's all year , and that's in part because the system itself is broken down. The infrastructure is not doing what it's supposed to do. There are more , you know , more frequent leaks or breakdowns of the system. So in that area , it's pretty much all year long. And most of the other beaches , it tends to get worse when we have a rainstorm , because when we flush everything down the storm drains and onto the beaches. Hmm.
S3: Hmm.
S1: Well , we've been talking mainly about beaches , but you also study water quality and other bodies of water in San Diego , including mission Bay. Tell me about what you're seeing there.
S2: From an ecosystem perspective. The system is not doing too badly as far as if you look at the the organisms living in the bay. But we are seeing , for example , heavy metals in the sediments and particularly in some of the marinas we are seeing if we go out after a rainstorm. Way more impacts along the storm drains. You have invasive species in some spots of the bay that are that are in sometimes some days really just taking over the the docks and that whole area. I always have to make it clear that when we talk about marine pollution , we really have to define the difference between what happens to the marine system and the ecosystem itself versus what happens to humans. The systems are more resilient than we are. They can recuperate. And , you know , sometimes an event that would seem horrible for us could be really good for the worms or the clams that live in mission Bay. So from that perspective , the system is doing reasonably well. Um , from a human perspective , some parts of the bay are places where you don't want to go after a rainstorm.
S3: Yeah , and I.
S1: Know that that our water sources come from different places. Our drinking water doesn't come from the beach.
S2: Right. We we have a variety of safeguards. There's so many more regulations , the cities , the state , everybody pays really much closer attention to that. Unless we end up having situations where the pipes are breaking down because of infrastructure issues along the way. I don't think it's a big issue from a water from a drinking water perspective. Um , so I think we're okay there. It really comes down to what's happening in our beaches and in our streams along the way.
S3: Yeah , well.
S1:
S4:
S2: Good things going on. First , I want to say that we are very lucky that in the San Diego County area , there are so many different groups that are working in on a variety of different solutions , including trying to increase , for example , natural filtration with , you know , restoring wetlands and having them do actually the work in many cases. And so you have work done by San Diego , Canyonlands and sending a housekeeper inside of San Diego Audubon Society that are working in these areas. You have groups like Wild Coast that are working along , that are putting in some low cost booms that are actually catching some of the physical pollution. And then I'm working with a local company that uses sustainable materials called Earth Wide Sorbent , and we are using those booms in marinas to actually pick up some of the oil pollution and the heavy metal pollution and even some of the plastics that are , that are coming into the ocean. So there's a lot of activity. And one of the great things is the groups are starting to work together more and more. So instead of having just 1 or 2 groups working in different places , we're coordinating our efforts. So I think that's going to improve our our situation even more.
S1:
S2: I always think it's important for us to think of of the community involvement. So many of the groups that are working have volunteer opportunities for cleanups , so beach cleanups or days where they might even need citizen science so people who can go help and even collect the data. So at least we know what's going on. So that's one great way for for anybody who's interested and who cares about , you know , water quality in the ocean to get involved. That's always a great way to go. I think from a safety perspective , what we have to do as individual citizens is pay attention to the advisories and make sure we we take care of the situation from when it rains not to go in the ocean and then , you know , in your home or around your , your home , making sure that you're not pouring things down the storm drains. I mean , we have the thing blue campaign in San Diego , right ? It's one of those ideas that we need to be thinking that we may not be living close to the beach , but if I pour things down the drain , it'll make it down to the beach itself. So that means pay attention to when you're dealing with your car or your lawn , not over fertilizing all these things that keep your health , your house in a more sustainable space and puts less of the waste down the street and eventually down into the ocean.
S1: I've been speaking with Michel Beaudry. He's an associate professor of environmental and ocean sciences at the University of San Diego. Professor , thank you so much for joining us.
S2: Thank you so much. This was really wonderful. And it's really important for for us to all work on this together and improve the environmental quality and the quality of life in San Diego.
S1: Coming up , we'll discuss the pros and cons of Pure Water , the project to turn wastewater into drinking water.
S5: They claim that this water will reportedly be exceeding drinking water standards , they'll clean it to such a point that they actually have to put minerals back into the water to kind of give it that regular drinking water taste.
S1: Hear more on that when KPBS Midday Edition returns. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. On today's show , we've been discussing water quality across San Diego beaches. Well , now let's turn to the topic of drinking water , specifically the state of San Diego's multibillion dollar pure water project. The goal of recycling millions of gallons of wastewater into millions of gallons of drinking water. Some have called it toilet to tap. Joining me now with the latest is Mackenzie Elmer. She's the environment reporter for Voice of San Diego. McKenzie , welcome to midday.
S5: Good to be with you.
S1: Glad to have you here. So bring us up to speed with the origins of the Pure Water Project.
S5: It dumped its sewage into San Diego Bay , and you can imagine that probably smelled really bad. It started to drive tourists away , and it even corroded the hulls of the Navy ships in the bay. And over time , the city. Eventually , in 1963 , actually , it took until the city could build Point Loma wastewater treatment plant. And that's the main treatment plant that most of San Diego cities all send their waste to , including just the city of San Diego. But that plant actually treats water , and then it shoots that water into the ocean via a miles long pipe and eventually that plant as it became older. And Congress passed new Clean Water Act standards in the 70s. That plant was no longer treating water to the extent that we would like it to , in order to release it into the ocean. So then it became this kind of battle between the city of San Diego and Congress wanting the city to upgrade that plant , which would cost billions of dollars , or the city trying to come up with some other way to take care of the massive sewage problem that it had. It had to either treat it there or figure out another solution. And eventually , over time , the city came to this compromise , really , which was the idea of building pure water , and that is to recycle a large portion of the wastewater that would go to that plant and then the ocean and instead make it drinkable , which sounds kind of gross , but I did do a tour of the plant recently and saw kind of the technology that they're going to deploy there.
S1: It sounds very gross. I'm curious. So Congress wanted them to upgrade that Point Loma plant.
S5: They would apply for a waiver. They basically said , you know , San Diego , along with , I think Hawaii and another city also had very expensive upgrades to these kinds of coastal wastewater treatment plants that they felt sort of like uniquely targeted , I guess , to have to upgrade. And Congress would give them a pass , and then they would apply again for another waiver and they'd give them a pass. And that was until the city forgot to apply for a waiver one year. And that sparked a bunch of litigation. You know , environmentalists kind of stepped into the fray and sort of forced the city to kind of come to a different compromise , a different idea. Um , and this is this is where we're at.
S1: All right. Well , you said you visited the North City Water Reclamation Facility in Miramar for a tour of the construction. What did you find out when you were there ? Yeah.
S5: I didn't even know what the North City wastewater reclamation plant was , but I learned when I was there that the city has been sending water up there to be treated and used for irrigation for a number of years. And so that is now kind of the beating heart of the pure water program. So that's where the city is going to basically take water that's been treated to the extent that it's okay to apply to crops and treat it even more of five more stages of treatment so that we can drink it.
S1: And to be clear , this is this is wastewater. This is raw sewage that we're treating. Right.
S5: Right. It's you flush your toilet , that water goes through a set of sewage pipes and that water goes to different types of treatment. Go to Point Loma for treatment or some of it's shipped north to this reclamation plant to be recycled to a certain extent. The city has another set of pipes for stormwater , and that water flushes into those stormwater drains that are on the street , and that actually goes out to the ocean untreated. And that's a whole different problem , but not the one we're tackling here with pure water. Yeah.
S3: Yeah.
S1:
S5: It was funny. My social media journalist , Bella Ross , she joined me to do a social video and she made the point , like , you know , we did this hours long tour and we didn't see a drop of water the whole time. And that's that's because they are it is an active construction site. And mostly what we saw was the building of the huge facility that they've created up there for pure water. Hmm.
S3: Hmm. Okay.
S1: Well , I mean , I imagine a lot goes into recycling the water , even still. So what can you tell us about the details of the process ? I mean , how do you get all this sewage out , all the impurities and contaminants and even medications ? Because I hear sometimes it's hard to get like medications out of water when people throw them out or whatever.
S5: So that's a little bit less right than we actually put into the process. But that's because it goes through such a tense cleaning process. So like I said , the water first goes to the reclamation plant and it goes through a couple stages of treatment to get sort of those solids out that you might have in your toilet , um , to let those settle and , you know , kind of like send those off to be landfilled. It goes through a process to get rid of fats , oils and greases and any plastics that might float in there. Um , and then it goes on to a thing called secondary treatment. Basically , it's a big biological process. It's a big soup where they put bacteria in and that eats up a lot of the bad stuff. And that's actually a stage of the process where if something is really wrong with , like , let's say that there's an illegal dump potentially , which has happened before in San Diego's history. That's where the one point where the city will look and see if that bacteria is dying , there might be a problem. And we need to stop the process , or we need to check the process and see what's going on. So that's the first stage of sort of like checking to see that everything's right. But again , those two steps are already happening. We're already doing that to make that irrigation water. So now we move on to the pure water process. And that's another five steps of purification. And at the end they claim that this water will reportedly be exceeding drinking water standards. They'll clean it to such a point that they actually have to put minerals back into the water to kind of give it that regular drinking water taste.
S1: You mentioned that the solids are sort of allowed to to settle and they're separated from the water , and then they go off to the landfill. Does that present any environmental concerns.
S5: In terms of the waste for what's it left over from the pure water purification process ? I'm not sure that's a good question. And it's something that we should definitely follow up with the city on. But I did want to mention it's interesting. Um , California law says that , you know , these sorts of wastewater to drinking water projects , they can't just take that end product even though they claim it's going to be , you know , so clean. We have to put minerals back in. They have to have an environmental buffer. It's called. So the water actually has to be sent to a reservoir. That very clean pure water gets put in a reservoir with dirtier water and then treat it again to drinking water standards. So it's not like this pure water is going to be just totally , you know , pumped straight to your tap. Although that probably would be the best use of the water and less energy intensive.
S1: Well in the city is also building a pure water education center to sort of break all of this down and cure any skeptics. How is public opinion around this ? You know , at one point it was coined toilet to tap water. So what are people thinking ? Are they comfortable with this.
S5: Toilet to tap was actually a campaign that Anti-poor water folks use back when the city was trying to get this project pushed through. And I mean , I'm sure anyone will turn their nose up when they first hear about the process , but that was sort of the effort of going and seeing the the treatment process to try to like , bring some light to the science behind it. And let me just say , if they did have water from the purification process that they could have offered me , I definitely would have drank it and had a better , you know , idea of how to describe it to you. Well , so stay tuned for that opportunity.
S3: I will , I will.
S1: It's a shame they didn't have that available though for you.
S5: I agree , but I'll be your guinea pig.
S1: We're all waiting to hear about that.
S5: They inject their end product into aquifers underground instead of a reservoir , which is a nice way to filter a water again and kind of provide that security in that buffer. Los Angeles is also working on another really large pure water. I'm not sure if I imagine it would be bigger than San Diego's , but I think so far San Diego is kind of. At least if they do , both phases of this project would be one of the largest.
S3: Well , when can.
S1:
S5: The city is still in a dispute with StG and E over power lines and moving them to make way for pure water , but I'm looking at some stats about whether this is supposed to save people money. And at least in 2019 , the city projected that by like 2052 or 2053 , then we should start seeing some savings in terms of our water bills for using pure water. And that's because something we didn't touch on. But San Diego doesn't really have any water of its own. We import it from the Colorado River and from mountains far away. So that costs a lot of money to do. And so hopefully this project will eventually save San Diegans money.
S3: All right.
S1: We'll look forward to seeing if it does. I've been speaking with Mackenzie Ulmer. She's the environment reporter with Voice of San Diego. McKenzie , thanks for being here. Thank you. That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
