A disturbing scene is playing out in Imperial Beach, California, as students and families grapple with sewage pollution from the nearby Tijuana River.
CalMatters reported on the impacts on the San Diego beach town that include children missing school, canceled outdoor activities, and ailments such as brain fog and headaches.
In March, air monitors detected hydrogen sulfide levels at 15 times higher than the state limit. KPBS attributed the strong rotten egg smell to high heat and a malfunctioning pump at a Tijuana pump station.
For residents such as Virginia Castellanos, a school nurse, the fallout extends far beyond the horrible stench.
"I've been having headaches and nausea this whole week," Castellanos revealed, per CalMatters. "And I was already expecting my daughter to get sick, and sure enough, in the last couple days, she's showing symptoms and she said, 'Mom, I need my inhaler.'"
Aging wastewater treatment facilities frequently allow raw sewage to enter the Tijuana River in Mexico. The smell drives residents indoors to avoid symptoms like asthma, rashes, migraines, and dizziness.
This issue also affects children at school, as the air pollution can send them home sick, cancel outdoor activities, and put them in a poor state to learn.
Schools address the problem by using publicly funded air purifiers for indoor learning and closing off the outdoors. Still, those measures are only partial solutions to the overall problem that pollution creates.
"We like working and living here and having our kids in school close to home, but it is toxic," said Bethany Case, an Imperial Beach resident, per CalMatters. "We're living in this beach community and we're not living a beach life."
There are also unanswerable questions about how the impacts of all this exposure to air pollution will affect the kids in the long term.
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Save $1,000 this year 💸 CalMatters noted that many kids are turned off by outdoor experiences because of the pollution. For residents, it creates a frustrating situation.
"As a parent, you want your children to experience all the beautiful things that you had in your own childhood," said Farron Espinoza, a parent, per CalMatters. "You try to kind of recreate those moments, and we really can't do that."
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