IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. (KGTV) — The Imperial Beach coastline was brisk and breezy on Tuesday.
"You can open your windows today. But it's iffy. You always have to gauge it,” Dorian Edge, an Imperial Beach resident.
Edge, who's been calling IB home since the 80s, says the smell and sewage crisis are simply difficult.
"When you wake up gaging because the pollution is so bad at night, and you can't breathe, and you have to get up and shut your windows. That's when it really sinks in,” Edge said.
There's hope news of President Joe Biden setting aside $310 million to help upgrade the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant.
It's been earmarked in the President's proposed disaster relief funding package.
"We've gotten over $400 million dollars secured and applied to the project. We'll need another $200 million, and this $310 million will be enough to cover that,” Rep. Scott Peters said.
"What that would allow us to do is- with the additional funding- is really fortify our plant and actually even consider the possibility of expanding the capacity, right? Either to primary treatment or full-blown primary and secondary treatment,” Dr. Maria-Elena Giner, Commissioner of USIBWC, said.
ABC 10News asked Giner if that possible funding could accelerate the timeline of fixing the plant within 5 to 7 years.
"That funding will help us make those types of decisions, whether building it bigger or building it faster or a combination of both. It'll give us that level of flexibility,” Giner said.
The proposed funding plan as a whole will eventually need to get approved by Congress.
"I think there's a reasonable chance that because there's so many interests that are being covered, Republicans and Democrats will come together and vote for this,” Peters said.
Although that money sounds nice, Edge believes they need to do more and faster.
"It's going to go through government. This is going to take forever. That's why the State of Emergency has to be called. We need to do it now, not years later, not months later. It needs to be done now. We're already way behind,” Edge said.
