SCRIPPS TO DEVELOP SEWAGE POLLUTION TOOL

Financed by $3M from state, model hoped to forecast levels of danger

In front of Imperial Beach’s deserted shoreline dotted with red “warning” signs, members of San Diego’s legislative delegation announced Friday that $3 million from the state budget will fund a new model aimed at more accurately predicting sewage contamination days in advance at South County beaches.

UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography will develop the Tijuana River Estuary and Coastal Ocean Pathogen Forecast Model, which scientists said can inform decision-makers when beach closures are necessary as work continues to stop sewage spilling over the border from Mexico.

“The vision is that a local family or tourists can look at an app and see — just like you can see with a weather model or with weather predictions — whether it’s a good idea to take your kids to the beach on the weekend,” said Falk Feddersen, a Scripps physical oceanographer.

The funds to develop the forecast tool were brokered by state Sen. Steve Padilla, D-Chula Vista. He was joined Friday by several other San Diego officials, including Assembly members David Alvarez, Chris Ward and Laurie Davies, Sen. Catherine Blakespear and Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre. They said water quality tests have and will continue to prove that sewage is severely impacting communities on both sides of the border unless the problem is fixed.

They called on Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden to declare the sewage crisis an emergency. Such declarations would cut through red tape, they said, so that urgent repairs to the failing and outdated treatment plant at the U.S.-Mexico border could start.

Imperial Beach was among the South County communities whose residents and businesses were under a boil-water advisory since

Thursday after a water line tested positive for E. coli.

“Our ocean waters are poisoned, our parks are poisoned, our air is poisoned, and now our drinking water is poisoned. This should never happen in any community,” said Aguirre.

Scripps’ tool will be based on two key aspects that will result in having five-day forecasts: sampling water at beach and coastal sites to identify harmful pathogens and conducting lab experiments to assess how long bacteria survives