U.S. military invites media to see border mission work

Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Thursday, March 13th.

The U-S military grants media access to show some of its work at the border.

More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….

Forecasters at the National Weather Service expect today to be the main event of what’s been a stormy week.

A flood watch is in effect through the afternoon for coastal areas, valleys and foothills.

Forecasters are expecting 3-to-5 inches of snow in mountain communities.

And a wind advisory will last until 5 a-m Friday for county deserts.

The weather should clear up over the weekend before another chance of rain arrives next week.

All this rain will increase runoff and contaminated water flow to the ocean including from the Tijuana river.

San Diego County has renewed its local emergency declaration relating to cross-border sewage pollution.

Supervisors voted unanimously this week for a 60 day extension.

It’s been in effect since June 2023.

The declaration also asks the state to declare its own emergency, but Governor Gavin Newsom has so far not taken that step.

At Wednesday’s meeting, District 5 Supervisor Jim Desmond said he wrote to the new E-P-A Administrator Lee Zeldin, to see what the Trump administration can do to address the situation.

When supervisors reconvene on April 8th, they’ll consider final approval of a new tenant protection ordinance.

Evictions would be halted for at least 7 days following a declaration of a local emergency.

All communities in San Diego County, including incorporated cities, would be covered.

East county supervisor Joel Anderson voted against the ordinance.

If final approval is given next month, the ordinance would take effect immediately.

From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.

Since January, Marines from Camp Pendleton have been deployed to the U-S - Mexico border.

It’s part of a broader military border mission ordered by President Donald Trump.

Andrew Dyer says their mission is simple.

Near the Otay Mesa port of entry Marines from Camp Pendleton are reinforcing the two border fences. 

For more than a month, about 500 combat engineers have been stringing concertina wire from the San Ysidro port of entry eastward.

That’s the extent of their mission, says Lt. Col Tyrone Barrion, who’s in charge of the operation. The Marines are not to engage with migrants.

“We have communication with border patrol directly … you saw some of them that are positioned across here … we notify them and we continue our work.

The Marines are from engineering battalions – essentially construction crews. The Marines we saw weren’t armed.

As of now the military’s deployment to the border is open-ended. Once the Marines finish reinforcing these fences, they say they’re ready to go wherever the Border Patrol needs them next.

From the border near the Otay Mesa port of entry, I’m Andrew Dyer, KPBS News.

LGBTQ-plus advocates in the Imperial Valley are launching two new organizations. Kori Suzuki says it’s a sign of a shift in the rural border county.

I meet the founders on a warm, windy evening.

There are four of them: Clarissa Padilla, Clara Olivas, Joey Espinoza and Sandra Mejorado. We’re outside Sobe’s Restaurant in El Centro, where they’re getting ready to hold their first meeting of a new group called Queer Social Club.

Olivas says their goal for tonight is to bring LGBTQ+ people together for dinner and social activities.

“This is our first meeting. So, we're out here seeing what's going to happen. How you guys feel like? Fantastic. Excited, very Very excited. excited. Yeah.”

Queer Social Club is one of two new organizations that the four founders are currently working to start. They’re also working to start another group called Queer Casa.

For both organizations, Padilla says they want to focus on creating new supportive places – which they feel like are missing in the Valley.

“There's still a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of resources that are missing. There's a lot of people that aren't being served and what I would like to accomplish with Queer Cops and queer social club is to create the visibility to be able to uplift and empower residents here in Imperial County that are queer.”

These new groups mark a change for the Imperial Valley. For decades, this region – a mostly rural, farming county – hasn’t been a welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people. For years, there’s only been one dedicated organization: the Imperial Valley LGBT Resource Center.

“You'd be hard pressed to find someone who says that they're happy to be trans in Imperial County.”

Raul Ureña was the first openly-trans mayor of Calexico, the county’s second-largest city. For Ureña, it wasn’t until she left the valley to go to college in Santa Cruz that she was able to embrace her gender identity more freely.

“I get to college and I just want to wear makeup and like dresses and heels and I feel in the safety of my colleagues at UC Santa Cruz.”

The Imperial Valley has become somewhat more accepting over time. LGBTQ+ candidates started winning campaigns for public office – including Ureña, who was elected in 2020.

In the last few years though, there’s been another shift. Across the country, experts who study extremism say there’s been a movement to restrict LGBTQ+ rights – and the rights of trans people in particular. Driven by anti-LGBTQ+ activists, the Trump administration and far-right legislators.

RG Cravens is a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“These groups started to organize around that goal to use trans identity to wedge apart everybody else, right? Because when you wedge apart coalitions that stand for civil rights, um the then you leave a vacuum.”

Across California, reports of hate crimes and violence against trans people have risen. Including in the Imperial Valley.

In 2020, a trans woman named Marilyn Cazares was found dead in Brawley. Her family called it a hate crime, sparking local protests. That year was one of the deadliest on record for trans Americans, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

The Valley has also seen other high-profile actions. Like when a recall campaign in Calexico removed Ureña from office last year. And when, more recently, the Imperial Valley LGBT Center rebranded. Removing the letters “LGBT” from its name.

For some, like Ureña, those incidents have made it hard to stay in Imperial County. This past November, she ran for City Council again. But after losing, the former-mayor left Calexico and has since moved to San Diego.

“As soon as I lost the second election, I felt like it was very clear that my gender identity in its presentation was an obstacle. One as an activist knows when they have to choose self-preservation”

Still, Ureña and other advocates remain hopeful about the future of the Valley’s community. These new organizations, Queer Casa and Queer Social Club, are still in their early days. But that need for people to leave to have a place where they feel safe or welcome – is what they hope to change. Here’s Padilla.

“And that's part of what we're trying to accomplish here is in-person connection, in the valley connection, and not just, oh, well, you can go on a message board. No, you can come and be with us and find your community that will support you, uplift you.”

A couple weeks after that first Queer Social Club event, I meet with Padilla again to hear how it went. They say it was electrifying.

“I felt it collectively. It wasn’t just a lightning strike for me, it was a thunderstorm and everyone was on fire. Everybody was passionate. Everybody was saying, how can I help? What can I do? When’s the next one?”

It felt, Padilla seems to be saying, like people had been waiting for a place like this.

In El Centro, Kori Suzuki, KPBS News.

President Donald Trump has ordered sweeping 25-percent tariffs on steel and aluminum products entering the United States.

John Carroll says that came as unwelcome news at one Chula Vista manufacturing company.

When we visited Hyspan in Chula Vista last week, President and CEO Eric Barnes told us the tariffs would make things much more difficult for companies like his.

Hyspan uses a lot of steel and aluminum in its goods.

Barnes says now that the tariffs are in effect, the company will be forced to pass along most of that cost to customers.

And Barnes says business leaders like him will have to deal with uncertainty, which he says is bad for business.

“Uncertainty, you just up the risk factor. I think it paralyzes growth, it paralyzes investment if things are going to change on you.”

Barnes says he’s worried we’re now on the verge of a global trade war, where things could easily spiral out of control.

John Carroll, KPBS News.

This week, the San Diego city council voted to approve a 5-point-5 percent water rate increase.

It was just the first increase of many to come in the next four years.

For our “why it matters” segment Voice of San Diego's Scott Lewis explains.

The city of San Diego last year projected water rates will rise 61 percent through 2029 – adding about $57 per month to the average water bill. That's almost $700 per year.

Why is this happening? A few reasons. Water agencies have borrowed money to build infrastructure – pipes pumps dams.  This creates an enormous demand for electricity to run the whole system. Electricity is much more expensive now. 

San Diego has also itself taken on three huge projects that we’re paying for now. First, we bought a bunch of water from farmers in the imperial valley more than 20 years ago at a very high cost. 

Second, we built a seawater desalination facility and agreed to buy the water for decades at a much higher price than even the imported water. 

Third, San Diego and Los Angeles are both building very large sewage recycling facilities. That will eventually lessen the need for imported water but they are very expensive projects now. 

Leaders here hope to sell all the water we have bought to provide some relief. But if they don’t do something soon, the backlash could lead to some extreme solutions. One Councilmember suggested seceding from the county water authority. 

It’s going to get heated. I’m scott lewis for voice of san diego and that’s why it matters.

A plan to fund environmental restoration projects in the Tijuana River Valley has shifted toward funding wastewater facility maintenance exclusively.

While some regret the changes, others understand there’s a more pressing need.

inewsource investigative reporter Philip Salata has more.

SALATA: Last year Senator Steve Padilla announced a bill that would allow some of the money from tolls from the future Otay Mesa East Port of Entry to help create the first ever long-term fund to restore the Tijuana River watershed. Here’s Sen. Padilla in December. 

PADILLA: SB 10… would specifically produce revenue for environmental mitigation and to address so many of the issues in the watershed that are not just degrading an incredible resource, but are having tremendous public health impacts on our community.

SALATA: The original draft of the bill authorised toll revenues to be “used for environmental mitigation and restoration of the Tijuana River Valley and adjoining lands.” It also targeted wastewater infrastructure as part of the plan, as well as other projects in South San Diego County. 

But last month, legislators changed that.

Now, new language narrows the bill and says the toll funds could pay for maintenance and repairs at the federally owned South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant. Mention of the mitigation and restoration projects were cut.

Reasons for the change?

PADILLA: I think this is a refinement, an amendment, that kind of makes it a little more focused and a little more impactful.  

SALATA: The senator says that one cause of the pollution in the river valley is the lack of steady revenue for maintaining the plant. Even though funds are secured for its current build out, money for long-term maintenance is still an open question.

PADILLA: There isn't a stable, permanent source of revenue that is dedicated to capital development or to operations. It's sort of just subject to the normal budget process, which can be crazy.

SALATA: Since 2018, 100 billion gallons of sewage and untreated wastewater have poured through the Tijuana River into the Pacific Ocean. 

Chris Peregrin from State Parks in the Tijuana River Estuary says that the problem is not only polluted water, but also the build up of sediment from wastewater runoff that blocks off tidal channels from the ocean. That traps pollutants, prevents the marsh from flushing out, which in turn creates conditions that lead to fish die offs, among other problems.

PEREGRIN: What we see here is pretty dramatic and extreme and definitely a stress around the system.

SALATA: Local advocacy groups and leaders still support SB10. But some say the change is a lost opportunity to address the long-term impacts of the sewage crisis on South Bay communities.

CREVOSHAY: The wastewater treatment plant is a very important part of the solution. Yes, true, but it's only one piece of the solution.

SALATA: That’s Fay Crevoshay, a policy director for Wildcoast, a binational coastal advocacy organization. She says that the organization still backs the bill, but is disappointed at the change.

CREVOSHAY: We need to be holistic and solve the problems. Environmental mitigation and the restoration of the Tijuana River Valley are just as crucial.

SALATA: Phillip Musegaas agrees. He’s the executive director of Coastkeeper, an advocacy group that is currently involved in litigation with the federal government over sewage spills from its wastewater plant.

MUSEGAAS: Coast keeper will continue to support SB 10, but we are concerned that just limiting the funding revenue to maintenance of the South Bay treatment plant is too restrictive.

SALATA: Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre says she believes the revisions were made to give the bill more solid footing.

AGUIRRE: If and when the bill passes, the funding can go directly into an already functioning federal piece of infrastructure that is addressing the intent of what the bill is meant to address.

SALATA: And that’s how Sen. Padilla sees the change. He says his goal is maximum impact.

PADILLA: Deferred maintenance adds up to problems and higher costs.

SALATA: Still, Sen. Padilla says concerns about the bill’s narrowed scope are warranted.

PADILLA: There is no doubt that we need new funding for mitigation efforts broadly. And I'm not going to give up on that. It just may be in a different place, in a different avenue and a different approach.

SALATA: For KPBS, I’m inewsource investigative reporter Philip Salata.

inewsource is an independently funded, nonprofit partner of KPBS.

The San Diego State men’s basketball team could book their ticket to the NCAA tournament this weekend.

It all starts today at 2-30 with their opening round game against Boise State in the Mountain West Championship Tournament in Las Vegas.

The game will air on CBS Sports Network.

That’s it for the podcast today.

As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org.I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.