CORONADO, Calif. (KGTV) — San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer is teaming up with several local officials in an attempt to get the Environmental Protection Agency to take action against the sewage crisis in the South Bay.
On Thursday morning in Coronado, Lawson-Remer is slated to speak alongside those officials and some South Bay residents, submitting a petition to the EPA to designate parts of the Tijuana River Valley as a "superfund site."
A superfund site is part of a 1980 law that the EPA can use to free up federal funding to clean up hazardous waste sites around the country.
Those sites are meant to target toxic waste, not raw sewage -- which normally falls under the Clean Water Act.
But Lawson-Remer wants the EPA to designate a six-mile stretch of the Lower Tijuana River Valley as a superfund site after decades of exposure to toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and pesticides.
In an agenda item from the County Board of Supervisors, Lawson-Remer said several other areas have been designated as superfund sites as a result of sewage in places like Washington and New York.
Local leaders say repairs to wastewater infrastructure on both sides of the border is happening too slowly to protect the South Bay.
ABC 10News has been talking to residents for years about the impact of sewage.
Morri Chowaiki owns a house in the South Bay, but said the fumes make his daughter sick.
"Crying and dry-heaving and actually ending up throwing up. And she's like, ‘What is this? I can't stay here,’" said Chowaiki. "My dream was to have a beach house for my kids to hang out in. They don't want to be here; they literally don't want to come. What's the point?"
Lawson-Remer said more than 500 residents have signed the petition for a superfund site. If the proposal moves forward, the EPA will need to conduct an inspection of the area.
If the area is designated as a superfund site, the EPA will then be required to make a clean-up plan for the Tijuana River Valley and hold responsible parties accountable.
Similar cases have resulted in lawsuits and settlements against companies accused of polluting.
