IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. (KGTV) – Local South Bay leaders are hoping a new push can get those in Washington to act when it comes to the sewage crisis.
“I know that no other community is suffering what we are suffering,” Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre said.
“We now mark 1,000 days since this beach has been open and available for the public,” State Assemblymember David Alvarez said.
That’s equates to nearly 33 months of the sewage crisis in the South Bay.
“I live on the beach, so I know. I look at the beach every day and see the sign, ‘polluted water.’ I’m tired of seeing that sign,” Alice De La Torre, Imperial Beach resident, said.
“All of us in the South Bay area are breathing in these toxic fumes and odor daily,” Bobbi Otero, a South Bay resident, said.
Alvarez and others on Tuesday rallying to highlight the legislation he wrote and got passed called AJR 12. He said the issue has reached, “a level of significant importance.”
“This is another continuing effort to get the government to do what they need to do. We’re calling them out. We’re saying we know you can do this; now get your act together and do it,” Alvarez said.
The message from that resolution from the state legislature is to President Biden and Congress.
“That we want them to declare a state of emergency. So that they can provide all of the funding that’s necessary and also all of the processes, the bureaucratic hurdles that are in the way to solving this problem; take those down and get this fixed,” Alvarez said.
It’s something those who call Imperial Beach home have been asking for for years.
“I mean just come and experience what we’re experiencing on a daily basis. This is an emergency, and we need the intervention our Governor and our President,” Aguirre said.
“Way before any other emergency. We have as much need and we’ve been waiting long enough,” De La Torre said.
Waiting to enjoy the cool and clean ocean during a heat wave like this one.
"Thousands of children that live in this area have not had a beach. They don't know what a beach is; to go into the water,” De La Torre said.
