“The results aren't what we need and what we need are fixes now,” said Mayor of Imperial Beach, Paloma Aguirre.
A superfund site identifies a place as contaminated with harmful, toxic chemicals.
In the past- the South Bay didn't qualify.
Back in October, local officials submitted a petition to the Environment Protection Agency to make part of the Tijuana River Valley a superfund site.
The agency rejected it, saying none of the contaminants met the screening levels for human health in residential soil.
10News has reported on concerns from leaders like Former County Supervisor Nora Vargas.
“What is the impact on property value? How does this work if it’s an international issue?” said Vargas.
To which others responded:
“I mean, take a look, we're already having our property values not just in Imperial Beach and all of South County be affected,” said Mayor Aguirre.
But the ongoing push for a superfund designation now has new data to go off of.
The CDC’s survey said 80% of residents said their quality of life has been negatively impacted.
On Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the EPA said that he would support the agency's border water infrastructure program- and look into why the previous superfund designation was denied.
After months of “no’s”, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre says this one “yes” brings some hope.
“They've been doing a lot of work but around, planning around the expansion of the treatment plant, but we don't know the exact types of pollutants that are in the river. We do have some empirical data from scientists, but we don't know the legacy type of pollutants that are present there, to what degree they're present and what are their effects on public health. So having the EPA being open to design it, I think it's very promising,” said Mayor Aguirre.
Mayor Aguirre says that if approved, the superfund site designation would be a 10 to 20 year process.
