New report finds chronic pollution in Tijuana River

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[upbeat news music] Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman. On this episode of KPBS Midday Edition, how San Diego's Haitian community is responding to the end of TPS and the threat of deportation. Haitian Bridge Alliance's Guerline Joseph joins us. This is KPBS Midday Edition, connecting our communities through conversation. [upbeat news music] A new report finds a steady stream of pollutants in the Tijuana wa- river watershed, including industrial chemicals and heavy metals. E. coli levels are 30,000 times higher than the federal standard for fresh water. The findings are based on samples collected over the past two years by local nonprofit San Diego Coastkeeper. Joining me now to talk about it is their senior attorney, Patrick McDonough.

Right.

Patrick, welcome.

Hello. Thank you for having me.

So glad to have you here. Um, tell me what makes this report different from so many others we've, we've heard about related to Tijuana River pollution?

Right. Yes, there has been a lot of monitoring and sampling of this area, and we all know it's very polluted, but this report really digs, uh, into the details of the exact man-made chemicals and certain types of pathogens and viruses that are unfortunately, uh, ever present in the Tijuana River Valley.

When you say industrial chemicals, what are you referring to exactly?

Uh, uh, first, semi-volatile, um, organic compounds and volatile organic compounds, what we call VOCs or SVOCs, those can be things like, uh, acetone, toluene, phenols, benzoic acid, and a bunch of other things that, uh, are difficult to pronounce. And those are used in all sorts of chemical manufacturing, plastics production, petroleum, uh, pesticide productions, solvents, degreasers. So pretty, pretty intense industrial chemicals used in a, a wide variety, um-

Mm-hmm

... of manufacturing.

Well, and while people may not even know how to pronounce these, um, pollutants, um, uh, they do know and, and fully understand the impact that they have on their health. So talk a bit about that. How do these chemicals, um, impact the health of those who are exposed to them?

Right. Well, they certainly impact the, the health of our waterways and aquatic ecosystems, but there are significant human health risks, which include cancer and endocrine disruption, um, respiratory irritation when you're breathing in these aerosolized pollutants, uh, nervous system effects. So they're pretty widespread.

Um, where are these pollutants coming from? Are there any spec- what are the specific companies and, um, and industries along that, that watershed?

Yeah. Uh, I can't speak definitively on that because need to... Th- this report indicates that we need to drill deeper on that front. We certainly hypothesize as San Diego