Senate Select Committee on California-Mexico Cooperation and Dialogue

And my partner in the border region, an amazing colleague and friend from the State Assembly who is joining the hearing this morning, Assembly Member David Alvarez. Please make a similar welcome. You are almost welcome. As I expressed a few minutes ago with our partners in the media who are reporting to our community and to our constituents, the purpose of this Select Committee is reflected in its name, and that is Mexico will pass China as our number one trading partner.

We coproduce 40% of our exports with Mexico. The binational dynamics in this region around workforce development, education, infrastructure, environmental health, trade are vital not just to this region, but vital and critical to the health, the economy and the prosperity of the State of California that we serve and to North America, frankly, and it is frankly often an understood, underinvested ignored part of our state. But I know that we have a lot of talent in our current state Administration.

We have tremendous talent in our Legislature that are making great strides in recent times to understand this important dynamic. And it's reflected by the participation that we have here today, both the Members that are joining us today and certainly our distinguished panelists. And so today, certainly I should just give you some background as the chair of the Select Committee. I've decided that we're going to do more than one typical Select Committee hearing. Oftentimes Select Committees will convene once in a legislative session, maybe twice.

But I envision convening three or four of these hearings over a successive period of months because I believe that the nature and the unique importance of this relationship deserves an ongoing conversation. And it deserves that in each occasion we take time to more deeply understand some of these complicated issues. It's not as simple as talking about it for a little while and then having some drinks, which we like to do.

But this is real important work because it's about the future and the health of our region and our constituents. And today, obviously, we are going to look at Trans border flows and cross border pollution and the impacts on the Tijuana River Valley and what that is doing to our local economy, to our local health, to local communities. And some of the good work, to be fair, that has been done and is being done.

But so much more needs, work needs to be done to understand the obstacles that remain and how we're going to approach those and what we can do better to approach those.

And first and foremost, the obligation of these information gathering sessions for those of us that have the honor to serve in the Legislature is to gather this most timely, most accurate information on a regular basis so that we can hold agencies that are all part of this situation and have a role in mitigating it or helping to solve it, holding people accountable. But most important of all, to report to all of you because this community has dealt with this ongoing issue for far too long.

And you have a right, you have every right to have the most timely, accurate, and complete information about what has occurred, what is occurring, and what will be occurring on this question and to ask those difficult questions. So this is about reporting to you, and that is why we have convened the Select Committee here today and on this particular topic. And I want to say also, I understand the anger and frustration that is in this community. My family's been in this region for over a century.

I have grown up with it as well and been frustrated by it as well. But it is not a partisan political issue. And if there's an issue that needs serious attention and to not be politicized, it's this one. This is not a Democratic Party problem. This is not a Republican Party problem. This is not just a federal problem, an American problem, a Mexican problem. It's everybody's problem. And there are elements of this problem that are dispersed on both sides of the border and across our region.

And it has been persistent through numerous administrations, federal and state, with people from both parties participating. So it's long past time we stop politicizing people's health and well being and economic opportunity and get about the business of understanding the problem and hearing from the folks that are working on it and asking the tough questions and holding folks accountable. It is primarily a federal problem, but the state has a role and has exerted, I will say, great leadership.

This Administration and others and this Legislature, before I joined it, allocated millions of dollars in mitigation funding to participate in protecting your community, our community, from some of the impacts of a problem over which, A, we're not primarily responsible, and B, we don't have the amount of control that we would like. And so I think our objective here is to have a focused, appropriate conversation. Everyone is welcome, and everyone's voice is welcome to be heard. But I want a procedural note up front.

I know there are some passions, and we welcome your passion, and we respect your right to express, but that right comes with responsibility. The responsibility is to respect all viewpoints. It is to respect those with which we might not agree. It is to not disrupt the hearing. I will say, with due respect, you are most welcome to be heard, but you are not welcome to disrupt the hearing.

If the hearing is disrupted inappropriately to the point that it cannot proceed, if necessary, I will suspend the hearing. I will ask the Members to retire to an anteroom, and I will ask the Senate Sergeants and Chula Vista PD to clear the chamber. I do not want to do that, but I will if necessary. So let's please maintain respect in good order and show respect for one another so that all of us can be heard.

And with that said, I want to extend my appreciation to Mayor John McCann and City Manager Maria Cachadorian and the City of Chula Vista for hosting us and allowing us use my old stomping grounds to hold this hearing. It's a pleasure to return from whence I came. Let's show our appreciation to the City of Chula Vista. I would like also, before we take panels, to briefly acknowledge some of our distinguished guests and some of the representatives we have joining us today.

The United States Consul in Tijuana, Tom Priyat. Where are you, Tom? Consul thank you, sir. Thank you. Consul Jose Preciado Council Member City of Chula Vista deputy Mayor Council Member Alonso Gonzalez Council Member Director Andrea Beth Damsky from the Helix Water District Director Steve Castaneda from the Sweetwater Authority and a former Council Member and colleague as well. Good to see you, sir. Roberto Cantar from the Southwestern College Board of Trustees. We have representatives from many offices.

Angel Marquez from the office of some guy named Alex Padilla. US Senator. We have Ryan Williams from Laphonza Butler's office. US Senator Laphonza Butler. Cesar Solis is here with Congressman Scott Peters. Janine Bryant, representing Congressmember Juan Vargas. Matt rebel. From California, State Senator Catherine Blakespear. Hayden Yanta is here with Office of Assemblymember Marie Waldron. Andrew Harvey's here with San Diego County Chair Nora Vargas's office. And from the office of Mayor McCann, we have Amanda Angulo and Gonzalo Rocho.

From the office of Senate Pro Tem Tony Atkins. All right, I think I've shared some ongoing thoughts about the importance of this dialogue. I will first give an opportunity to my colleague, Senator Durazo. She has any desire to make any opening comments before we take panels as well as Assembly Member and it's totally your discretion. You don't have to, but I thought I'd afford it. Should we go right to the panel or do you have any comments? Assembly Member.

Good morning. And I'm not I just want to thank the Senator for inviting me. These kind of issues, while they may be different in the area of Los Angeles, they're very similar in the sense of having environmental issues that particularly hurt our communities, Low income communities. And so I'm very interested from that point of view and I look forward to hearing and listening to everyone who's going to speak today. Thank you, Senator.

Assembly Member.

Thank you, Senator Padilla. And specifically want to make sure we all acknowledge and recognize Senator Durazo who made the trip down here to learn about these really important issues to all of us. We've all lived with this, those of us who live here our whole lives, our entire lives.

And the fact that she's taking time to come and learn about this so that she can also understand these issues and be an ally with us at the state to make sure that we take action to this, that, as was eloquently already introduced, by Senator Padilla requires action to be taken. So I appreciate all of you who there hasn't been one public space that I have been in where this issue has not come up rightfully so. And I thank you for that.

And I thank you for being here today to once again ensure that we have this important discussion. It really is as simple as it's an issue of justice, to access to water, to clean water to our beach. For those of us who live down here, we're talking about 700 days. It's unheard of anywhere else, of lack of access. And it really just comes down to that. So now it's making sure that we are taking the steps to address this issue. So I want to thank Senator Padilla again for convening us to have good dialogue, productive dialogue to move this forward. Thank you, Senator.

Thank you. Assemblymember. Thank you for your leadership. All right, we have some distinguished panelists who have taken time to rearrange their busy schedules to come and be present and inform us about what is occurring. And so I'd like to welcome the first panel dealing with federal issues, the Federal Action Plan to address cross border.

And welcome to come forward to the table Martha Guzman, who is the regional administrator for the United States Environmental Protection Agency Region Nine, and be followed by Sally Spencer, who is the secretary for the US. International Boundary and Water Commission. Director Guzman, we are very grateful for you taking the time. Please make yourself comfortable wherever you would. Ah, OK. I guess I'm being already corrected. We're going to take IBWC secretary up front, and then we'll take the Director. I'm assuming it's also because of time constraints. So secretary. Welcome. Thank you for your patience, Director.

Thank you, Chairperson Padilla. Senator Durazo. Assemblymember Alvarez. My name is Sally Spener. I'm the United States Secretary of the International Boundary and Water Commission. United States and Mexico. I'm based here at our San Diego field office. I'm accompanied by Morgan Rogers, who is our area operations manager here in San Diego and will provide support for any technical questions that may arise. I'm here representing Dr. Maria Elena Hinar. She's the United States Commissioner of the IBWC.

She was appointed by President Biden a little over two years ago. And she's not here because she's actually in Washington, DC meeting with the California Congressional delegation to share with them what the challenges, progress and needs are for our San Diego Tijuana Sanitation Project. Next slide.

So I'm going to be talking today about the problems that we're currently experiencing at the border, the ongoing repairs that we are undertaking in order to bring our sanitation project into compliance with its permit, as well as plans for rehabilitation of the existing plant and expansion of our treatment capacity in San Diego for wastewater coming from Mexico. Next slide. So this is a map that shows you what we consider to be the current weak points at our plant.

I'm going to start with the red circle that's at the left of your screen, which is the San Antonio De Los Buenos wastewater treatment plant in Mexico. It's about 6 miles south of the border. Basically, it's not functioning. It's providing minimal to no treatment of wastewater. You go down there and you see a river or a creek of sewage that flows into the ocean, and when those currents head north along the coast, it is impacting our communities here in San Diego County.

Pipeline One A, which is there kind of in the bottom in the middle is a pipeline that conveys Mexican wastewater to the San Antonio De Los Buenos area and to the coast. It was damaged in July of 2022. As some of you are aware, who travel to Tijuana regularly, they're constructing a new highway along the border that heads out west towards Playas. And as part of that construction, they actually were doing some boring and drilled a hole in a pipeline, caused that to rupture.

That then the flow from that pipeline undermined the other pipeline and it also failed. And so as a result of that, it's contributing to the problems that we're having. And I'm going to talk a little bit in more detail about that shortly. Junction Box One, which is the red circle at the top of the screen, is a structure that helps to control flow that comes into our international wastewater treatment plant. And it has been out of service, so we cannot limit flow to the plant.

And that has also contributed to the challenges that we're experiencing right now. The international collector is another wastewater pipeline. It is functioning, but when you have high flow in the pipeline, it's subject to overflow. It's old. But the good news is that a new pipeline is under construction. And that is one of the Minute 328 projects. Minute 328, of course, is the U.S. Mexico agreement that we signed in 2022 that provides about a half billion in U.S. and Mexico investment to address the border sanitation problem at San Diego, Tijuana.

Next slide. So this is just a picture of some of the conditions that we are experiencing at the Pipeline 1A rupture. This is in the Smuggler's Gulch area known as Montadero Canyon on the Mexican side. And you can see just that geyser of sewage that was happening in the summer of 2022. It is a very steep area.

It has been a challenging project in addition to which they had to get the pipeline shipped in from China. The good news is that they have completed the project. They're starting to run sewage through it to pressurize the line and we expect it to be fully operational imminently. I also wanted to mention that the United States government was extremely concerned about the failure of this pipeline. They fixed one of them very quickly in about a matter of weeks after it failed in 2022.

And the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, the U.S. Consulate and Consul General Tom Reott and his staff are here today, and other U.S. government officials really engaged repeatedly and consistently with the Mexican government to accelerate the repair of this project. It was originally planned to be completed in April of 2024 and we certainly let our Mexican officials know of the importance of this repair to the residents of San Diego, County, to the operators of the International Wastewater Treatment Plant.

And we're pleased that they have just completed the repair of that project. Next slide. So this is a graph that shows the transboundary wastewater flows in the Tijuana River over the last several years. The black line at the top of your screen is the flows in 2023. As you can see, a lot higher, billions of gallons. This I think reflects the rainy winter that we had in 2023. Also the impacts of Hurricane Hillary as well as the infrastructure failures on the Mexican side with that Pipeline 1A failure.

We did have additional flow in the Tijuana River as well as to the International Wastewater Treatment Plant. When we see flow in the river, it is a combination of stormwater mixed with wastewater, groundwater, there's even some potable water in there from time to time, but we particularly see the problem when we have stormwater flows that exceed the capacity to capture and treat those volumes. Next slide.

So one of the biggest problems that we are currently experiencing at the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant is flows that exceed the plant's design capacity. This has been occurring since we had the pipeline failure in Mexico in the summer of 2022. We have had excess flows for 12 of the last 14 months and this is also causing exceedances in our water quality permit.

The excess flows are due to the problems with junction box one, the failure of that where we can't dial back and limit the flows coming into the plant as well as the Pipeline 1A rupture in Mexico. You can see on the right hand of the screen some of the problems that are caused by excess flows.

It's kind of like you're driving your car 24/7, 100 miles an hour down the interstate and you just don't have time to stop and change the oil and put air in the tires. The primary sedimentation tanks which you see on your screen there, that's what it should look like on the left and on the right is what it looks like today. They're basically not functioning. And so that's creating significant problems with solids removal from the wastewater flow.

And that, again, is affecting the permit and water quality. Next slide. So if we didn't have enough challenges already, we had a tropical storm that hit this area at the end of August. It flooded part of the plant and it brought a river of trash, sediment and debris into the plant, which caused widespread problems and failures above and beyond those that we were already experiencing due to the continuous excess flows at the plant. What you're seeing in those pictures is the headworks.

The top left is what it should look like during dry conditions. The red line is showing how high the water came during the tropical storm. And you can see in the bottom photo, you can see some stuff kind of floating there with all this standing water at the headworks. So this really exacerbated the challenges that we were already experiencing at the plant. Next slide. So those are what the problems are. What are we doing about it?

Well, we are undertaking steps to bring the plant back into compliance with its permit by August 15 of 2024. And we are making incremental progress during that time starting this fall, and that will continue through August of 2024. We awarded $10 million in repair work using our fiscal year 2023 funding. And we are also redirecting $8 million from our budget from other projects in our budget to address the impacts of Tropical Storm Hillary. Next slide. So these are some of the repairs that we have underway.

The influent pumps will be installed in January and February of 2024. So that's going to help bring additional pumping capacity and redundancy for us the Hollister Pump Station, which we had a failure of following the tropical storm. It is back in operation, and we will continue to get additional pumps. And three out of the four are now back in operation. Junction box number one is being replaced as a design build project that was awarded this fall, and we expect it to be completed in early 2025.

But we are also undertaking a temporary repair and that should be completed in the very near future. For the unstabilized sludge storage tanks, we are undertaking some work there. And for the primary tanks you see on the far right, we have rehabilitation of one of them is already underway that's going to be finished in early 2024. And the others will be rehabilitated mostly during the first half of 2024. Next slide. So that's the repairs for the existing problems that we are experiencing.

But we know that we are going to be expanding the existing South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant. That is one of the most important commitments that we made under Minute 328, which was signed again in the summer of 2022. Our objective with the 328 projects is to reduce transboundary flows by 90%. And we are going to be doubling, doubling the capacity of our existing South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant. It's going to go from 25 million gallons per day to 50 million gallons per day.

And we're also going to be rehabilitating the existing plant. As we were assessing the current conditions, we realized that many of the components of the plant have reached the end of their life cycle and need significant rehabilitation and replacement. And that is going to be part of the project that we're undertaking. We're also going to be adding a peaking factor. It's not like sewage comes in at the same rate 24/7, 365 days a year.

So we will be able to temporarily treat flows of up to 75 million gallons per day. We'll be able to do that reliably and to be able to meet our permit requirement. The total cost of this expansion and rehabilitation project is about $600 million plus or minus 30%. Next slide. So the Solicitation, we're putting this out to bid imminently within days. It will be available for 45 days. We have about $290,000,000 still available in the USMCA appropriations. There are other EPA and us.

USIBWC funds that we expect to be able to contribute to this in FY 2024. As you're probably aware, we don't yet have a federal budget for the full year, but we are expecting additional funds that we'll be able to apply. And President Biden recently in his supplemental funding request, asked for an additional $310,000,000 so that we can complete the 50 million gallon per day plant with peaking factor. We are contracting a program manager to keep the project on schedule.

And we are also assigning two experienced USIBWC employees to this project full time. Normally our staff, we're a small agency, they're juggling multiple projects, but we know the importance of this and the scope of this, and therefore, we'll be devoting full time staff to oversee the project. Next slide. So the funding request that I mentioned was made at the end of October, and this is 310,000,000 for state foreign operations and related programs.

We get our appropriation through the Department of State appropriations Bill, and this goes to the international commissions and specifically the International Boundary and Water Commission. Without the $310,000,000 in supplemental funds, it will delay completion of our project by three or more years. That's because we won't have enough funding from the get go to start, and we'll have to phase it as the funding becomes available with annual appropriations. And when you do that, that also increases your overall costs of the project.

It costs more in the future than it costs today. And so there will be inflation and additional ramp up needed with each phase. Next slide. And so I think the three main messages that we want to leave with you today is we are undertaking repairs. We have redirected funding from other projects to prioritize this in order to meet permit compliance by August 15, 2024, and we will be making incremental progress between now and then.

The Solicitation for the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plan Expansion Project is going out to bid imminently, so we're on track with that. And President Biden has requested an additional $310,000,000 in order to complete the project. So that's the summary that I bring for you today, and I'll be able to answer questions at the appropriate time. I don't know if you want Regional Administrator Guzman to speak before we get to questions.

Thank you, Secretary. I think how we'll proceed in the interest of time is we'll take the regional director's testimony because I know that she is under some time constraints. And if it's okay with the both of you following the regional administrator's testimony, we'll have questions for both of you. Thank you so very much, and please welcome Martha Guzman. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. It's really an honor to be here with you today to talk about all of the work that many of you in the room have done for a much longer time than I have on this project. But to really highlight all of the collective work as you mentioned, Senator, from local communities, local, state and federal officials and leaders on both sides of the border.

And talking about really not just today's infrastructure and public health crisis, but really how we look at this for the long-term in a sustainable way so that we're not back here in 15-20 years with the same issue. I want to also just recognize my experts here, Lily Lee and Tara Flint Silva, who will be able to stay for the remainder of the hearing and answer any questions. They really know much more the details.

I'm going to have a little redundancy with my colleagues at IBWC, because, really we're here to highlight how we move forward today and how we move forward as a whole. Let me start by giving you a little bit of background on how this all began for our involvement. As you know, as a federal agency, we play the role of mostly the regulatory side, but also the funding side, primarily through the states, through the state revolving funds.

But in 2020, due to all of the really, the insight and the foresight for many of the local leaders, as you saw in the Secretary's slides, the years of 2020 were already showing a spiked problem. The leadership was able to secure congressional appropriation at that time of $300 million under the U.S., Mexico, Canada Agreement, which we refer to as USMCA, to help address this pollution issue.

And that's where our role began, because the appropriation was given to us as a broad task to take on this pollution issue. It's a really key point to highlight because most people think we got the appropriation for this particular project out the door. And it really was a much broader direction and the direction to do what we're doing here today, which was to involve the public. So we began to evaluate and identify the best options for addressing this contamination.

We contracted with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which I know is here today in 2020, and they evaluated the impacts of the infrastructure solutions on beach water quality. The researchers found that both the San Antonio De Los Buenos plant and the Tijuana River impacted the beach water quality, but that reducing wastewater flows from the San Antonio De Los Buenos would have the greatest benefit. These findings helped us really evaluate what the potential projects would be.

And as you know, obviously fast forwarding to what Secretary just advanced, which is that in August of 2020, we really started to evaluate all the range of the potential eligible projects. And this included looking at an estimate of project feasibility, impacts, cost and alternatives. An important part that, let me see not getting there yet, but an important part of this was to really look at what all the local governments wanted. So a large part of our role has been the convening role.

We convened a group of 19 government agencies to consult and provide input on the quickest and most effective approach. Some of you I know many of you in the room have participated in that. This is what we refer to as the Eligible Public Entities Coordinating Group. It has met 14 times since it was created, and we had our most recent update in October. We also have hosted 10 public meetings to solicit input and to try to keep the public as informed as possible on the progress.

So as a result, EPA and IBWC are really focusing on what was talked about already, which is the expansion of the international treatment plant to 50 million gallons per day. In July of 2022, we transferred funds to the IBWC to perform a diagnostic evaluation of the existing South Bay International Treatment Plant and develop more refined costs.

And in May of this year, that study estimated that the cost to expand the plant, including all the necessary rehabilitation that was just talked about, would be about three times the initial estimate. This new cost estimate, we got this determination post the federal FY 24 President's budget proposal. And as was mentioned already, this is why the Administration has proposed the supplemental funding.

So this is a very key point, because at this point, without that funding, we'll have to take a phased approach, although we will obviously be moving forward with the 50 million gallons per day. Okay, so I'm going to switch a little bit to the next slide here to talk about the collaboration with Mexico, and again, both for the immediate needs, but this type of partnership is obviously needed for the ongoing sustainability.

As part of this USMCA funds, there was a real effort to really leverage the partnership with Mexico. And in July of 2022, EPA and Mexico's National Water Commission, CONAGUA, signed a binational agreement this agreement is called the Statement of Intent. It identified these 17 projects to be implemented in the short-term, which reflects a commitment of 330,000,000 in U.S. dollars and 144,000,000 in U.S. dollars for Mexico. As of today, Mexico has secured over 50 million towards that commitment. Next slide.

Just very recently, November 13, President of Mexico Lopez Obrador announced plans for the Mexico Department of Defense to actually carry out the construction of the new 18 million gallon per day wastewater treatment plant at San Antonio De Los Buenos by the end of next year. This is a total of $31 million that will significantly impact, as was discussed already, the improvement of the coastal water quality.

We'll talk a little bit of the work we continue to do with the Mexican side, but this is really a tremendous commitment made by the President of Mexico. In addition, as was already highlighted, Mexico replaced a 42 inch broken sewer line that carries wastewater to the coast and is currently rehabilitating the international collector, which conveys flows to that international treatment plant. All of these, as Sally mentioned, will help with the problem. We continue to prioritize coordination with Mexico.

We've held over 40 binational meetings with all the levels of the Mexican government in the last two years alone. This has included meetings that US. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar has really will take in a leadership role in calling his Mexican counterparts and really seeking further development on all these projects.

My Boss, the EPA Administrator Michael Regan, he came out in August of 2021, which is before I started in the role, and also met on the Tijuana side with the Governor of Baja and really highlighted the importance of the issue. So, as many people here, this work has been ongoing for many years.

And of course, myself and Commissioner Hined, just this August, we're in Mexico City meeting with the Mexico Treasury, where we also were led by Ambassador Salazar to really stress again, as they were making their appropriation decisions on the importance of making San Antonio De Los Buenos an investment priority. Next slide. So this is obviously very redundant, but we want to make sure that we are hitting the point here, which is that we have a phased approach right now, given the limited funding that we were given.

And I want to highlight a couple of things from it's a very big consternation for us as an agency because most of our funding, we work on these. This is not a difficult project in terms of new innovation. This is a bread and butter wastewater infrastructure project. But most of our funding goes through the states. Because this is a federal agency, we require that federal appropriation directly for the project. It's not like the state revolving funds that fund most wastewater infrastructure throughout the state.

And so I do also though, just want to even though we're restricted with that main funding and require these types of supplemental appropriations or appropriations in the budgets. We are trying as EPA to do everything we can in and around with the funding that is eligible like a very small amount that we provided to the Air District for testing on the air impacts of this sewer sludge as well as other funding that we hope to make available but not directly to our federal sister agency.

So that's the constraint and again, just want to highlight the impacts of having that financial shortfall. So we look forward to continuing to work together with all of our local partners. The State of California and all the local leaders have been a tremendous partnership and leadership and really finding success in this supplemental is the hope for this next few months and beyond and then working towards the sustainable solutions to once again not be here in the future, but really finding those paths that are more sustainable.

Okay, thank you very much, Senator.

Thank you very much administrator. We appreciate your presence, Secretary as well. And I guess I'll begin just generically because first of all, I want to express directly that we certainly appreciate your dedication and professionalism. We also appreciate the tremendous technical difficulties that surround some of the engineering and planning around, not just making determinations around demand and capacity, but how that's achieved from an engineering standpoint and infrastructure standpoint and then how it's regulated and financed.

But I'm going to try to take a moment and just give some general voice, if I might, to, I think, just folks in our community who are not engineers and who are not attorneys and who are not federal regulators and who do not understand so often the technospeak that those of us in government sometimes get lost in the weeds of. And I know what's on their minds.

And I think maybe this is an opportunity to kind of maybe take a moment to sort of give some basic, for lack of a better word, light, shed some light on some of the questions that I hear, I know that the Assembly Member hears, no doubt all of us will hear on this question.

Going back to the mid 1940s, during World War II, when we had the initial international agreement and we set up the structure which ultimately led to what we're looking at currently in the IBWC. The whole construct was created understanding then that this was a binational problem from an infrastructure and natural standpoint, that there would be factors and dynamics that couldn't be under the control of a political boundary, that they were joined together.

And that construct was established to anticipate, to analyze, to maximize collaboration and cooperation between two sovereign states around connected infrastructure and common impacts so that there wouldn't be a breakdown in that communication there wouldn't be a disconnect in coordination on both sides of the international boundary so that we, to be frank, wouldn't end up in the situation that we're in.

That construct was designed to prevent the breakdown in coordination and I think was a very appropriate and in many ways did its job for a period of time. I think what's on the minds of a lot of my constituents is how did we get to this place where, with respect to the utter inability to anticipate on the demand side, the explosive growth in the Tijuana metropolitan region, in population, in infrastructure, in the built environments, runoff into the watershed.

The fact that climate change could play a role in having significant individual weather events that would have an outsized impact on capacity at any given moment in time, combined with that new infrastructure, that new population, this was well foreseeable. And I think a lot of our constituents are wondering what are the major impediments to having that?

Or what were the impediments, the major factors that prevented a tighter coordination, collaboration, awareness on both sides about these are the future capacity demands, these are the major factors that might aggravate that. How do we begin now, earlier than today and earlier than the last five years, anticipating that, planning for that, and thinking about how we might pay for that, what was the breakdown? Because we created a structure that was designed to prevent us from being where we're at.

And I know that lay folks, we just don't understand how we got here, how we didn't anticipate and plan more effectively. That said, I will say I am grateful to this Administration in recent years for playing catch up and making the strides that we've made. It's not an easy situation, and I want to also, in fairness, acknowledge that.

But I think if either of you could just generally shed some light on that, these are the kinds of questions that I get and I know the Mayor gets, we get from our constituents is this was foreseeable, what happened in that breakdown? What were the major challenges and what are the major challenges that we still face today in our budgeting approach and our planning approach, and how we manage the timeline of getting these capital improvements completed in a timely manner? Either one of you? No, ma'am.

It's better if you go to the mic. Thank you. Thank you for indulging.

Thank you. Thank you for that question. Yes, it has been a long and frustrating road for many people. And the original advanced primary plant was constructed in the mid 1990s and a series of things occurred over more than a decade before we were even able to achieve secondary treatment. Secondary was not completed until 2011. 1st, it was going to be activated sludge. Then there was some litigation and objection to that. It was going to be CMA ponds. Then there were some concerns and objections to that.

So we couldn't get funding to build CMA ponds. So then there was a private company that came in and they were going to build the treatment in Mexico and we were going to pump the advanced primary treatment uphill to Mexico for secondary treatment. And then there was litigation, and so this was all going on. So we didn't even achieve secondary until 2011. We did expand the secondary treatment in 2018, but part of it has been due to.

And Secretary, if I might interrupt you, just and forgive me, but one of my goals in convening this is to clear the air and inform our constituents because they have a right to understand. Some of our participants might not even know what you mean when you say secondary treatment. Can you just briefly explain what that water quality standard is in the United States? And why is that relevant to folks who might be wondering? Thank you.

Thank you for that. Secondary treatment is a higher level of treatment and is required by our permit. We were operating under the advanced primary level, really on a temporary and interim basis, because the constituents really wanted to make sure there was some level of treatment, even if we didn't have the funding and agreement to move forward with secondary, which is the higher level of treatment that provides better quality of the effluent when it's discharged into the Pacific Ocean three and a half miles offshore.

But one of the challenges that we faced were budgetary limitations. Our agency-wide construction budget for most of the last decade was $26 to $33 million a year. We are an agency that has responsibility along the entire U.S. Mexico border. We have another international wastewater treatment plant in Arizona. We contribute to another one in Mexico in the State of Tamaulipas.

We are responsible for hundreds and hundreds of miles of Rio Grande flood control levees, as well as large international storage dams, some of the largest dams in the country on the Rio Grande, as well as diversion dams and other responsibilities. And so we had a limited budget to address the multiple needs of the agency.

Only $4 million was invested in capital repairs to our South Bay plant due to the budgetary limitations for the period of 2010 through 2020, other than the secondary upgrade and expansion that I mentioned a moment ago. But what are we doing about that? We did realign $18 million from our FY 2023 budget to this project to address the immediate needs, and that's, to some extent, it's robbing Peter to pay Paul, and you can't do that forever.

But in recognition of the situation that we're in, Commissioner Hinaire prioritized this and prioritized the funding for that. We've also had problems with infrastructure failures in Mexico. They were not necessarily anticipated. Sometimes it was due to a big storm or just the situation we had last year. They were doing construction, and for whatever reason, they didn't check that there was a sewer pipeline under the ground before they started doing the boring. I mean, sometimes that's a bit out of your control.

And the excess flows and the Tropical Storm Hillary, I think, were other things that contributed to that over the years. I don't know if you have anything to add.

I would just say comparatively obviously, we have the privilege of seeing thousands of plants in our region and is just so unique that your operating budget is dependent on a federal appropriation. Most wastewater facilities have a utility base that you raise rates on. If you need that long term, you have that long term planning element. You don't have to deal with partisan politics and things like that.

So, you know, at a very high level, they were underfunded under different administrations and are dealing with this issue across the border. We were just in Nogales a couple of months ago. Terrible needs of investments there. People are actually dying because of the flood issues with their wastewater flows. That's the issue. The issue here is that there's been continuous underinvestment, and the structure is so unique in the sense that it is subject to this federal appropriation.

Administrator. I do appreciate the candor there in that response, but it's enlightening for a lot of us, and I think that's been part of it is the unique nature of the federal allocation process and also the politics in the Federal Government that have gotten in the way of, conversely, running to catch up and running away from the border problems in ways that are really inappropriate no matter who's in charge. But our folks are the ones that are suffering.

And so I do appreciate and respect that candor because we haven't always seen it and I'm grateful for it. I have just one other follow up question, just to get back to that anticipatory planning point I made earlier. We've made a determination on the International Water Treatment Plant to double capacity here to 50 MGD, million gallons per day standard. Can you just shed a little bit of light on how we got to that assessment?

What were the factors we considered in making sure that we have an adequate future capacity that we're building towards and we're not getting into a place where we spend a bunch of money, take a lot of time, build new infrastructure, and then five minutes after it's up and running, say, oops, it's inadequate to meet the demand. How did we get to that number? Are we confident in that number?

Yeah, well, okay, there's a couple of answers here. One is the population growth that you referred to was factored into the plant need. But this was a publicly engaged process. I mean, people, my colleagues here at the Regional Board, they would like to see a much larger size, fully protective of every scenario, especially with the extreme weather events happening now with climate change. I think what was finalized in the ROD gives us options actually dependent on the funding.

But all of those major factors like population growth, looking at the historical flows, looking at those other list of projects on both sides of the border. Another element is really what the future is, for example, with things that seem not too far away, which is the Colorado River. Tijuana is also dependent on the Colorado River. So there's a lot of interest in the reuse opportunities on the Tijuana side.

IBWC is through their leadership and we're part of this also are funding a reuse feasibility study on the Tijuana side. So there is all of those together looking at the long term flow needs that are going to be needed at the ITP. We do feel very confidently that we do have to get to 50 plus that peaking factor that will be sustainable for some time to 2050. Looking at my colleagues here, 2040. So it is continuous.

It's not one and done, but it's definitely the investment need right now.

I just might add to that the bigger project that we know there's a lot of community interest and support for is what we were referring to as the Tijuana River Diversion Project. And so that would, even with the expansion that we have, during wet weather events where you have a lot of flow in the Tijuana River, we will not be able to capture and treat those big storm events.

And so one of the projects that was analyzed through the NEPA analysis, through the environmental documentation and study that was undertaken was a project to actually divert the flow from the Tijuana River and the USIBWC will initiate a pre-feasibility study of that project that was identified in the record of decision. So it would conduct analysis for the required infrastructure for the Tijuana River Diversion. So that's again, looking forward, looking for the longer term needs of that larger Tijuana River Diversion Project.

Thank you very much. All right, I'll turn to my other colleagues, Senator Durazo or, some questions for the panel, followed by Assembly Member Alvarez.

Thank you very much. You know in Los Angeles, we went through a very probably the worst environmental disaster with Exide and it just kept getting put off for a number of reasons, but it just kept getting put off. And not only was it causing enormous damage to the health of the residents, but it was costing more every year that went by. It just cost more and more and more.

So how do we address this in such a way that we don't end up having to pay literally hundreds of millions of dollars more because we're doing the pieces and there's an explanation for why, but frankly, we end up having to pay so much more, and that's what it seems like is going on here. So how do we address that that this doesn't keep getting put off in such a way that's going to cause more damage and more harm in many, many ways?

And the second is if you could address I read in the notes somewhere about emergency declarations and the Federal Government's ability or will to use emergency declarations to, I guess, speed up the process is the way I understood it. But if you could comment on both of those, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Sure. By the way, maybe I'll go with the order that Exide continues to be a very important issue for us. And we are currently looking at the federal Superfund listing. It's a great example where both the state and the Federal Government are going to be continuously involved with the community there and not just on the boundaries of Exide, but the larger community dealing with legacy of lead from multiple sources.

And that's a model we want to actually continue to do here, which is where we can pool those state resources, where we can pool the federal resources. We want to put them towards these solutions. And of course, right now, most directly we're focused on the supplemental, but in that longer term is to continue to develop a tighter framework for more sustained funding. And Exide is a great example of that, where you pass the battery fee for continued revenue there.

And of course, the potential Superfund listing will have ongoing support from the federal and state government. So that's actually a very good analogy. Very different funding sources, but the analogy of really being all in and committed to the community's needs. On the emergency declaration, the thing with this project in particular is that we did all the environmental work already. That was what got us here, to know that this was the project we wanted to do.

We have the record of decision that allows us to move forward programmatically on many projects. That's the biggest advantage of emergency declaration is bypassing environmental. That is a decision for the President, obviously, but I think we're moving forward. We believe know you just heard from IBWC eminently next week, I believe is the issuance of the RFP. So we're actually at that place now of being able to move forward.

I'm sorry, just a quick follow up, Senator. Does that mean that the tool of having an emergency declaration is not needed, in your opinion? Because that's been raised by it's a.

It's a decision for the President.

Okay, but that's something that I think here locally, local, state and federal elected officials have joined in asking what.

We're seeing as a real added value is the supplemental funding.

Thank you, Senator. Assembly Member Alvarez.

Thank you. I think I should start off by just making a few comments which will probably apply to all the panels and that's Senator Padilla already very eloquently stated how passionate many of us are and certainly our constituents are. And in some of the questions that I'll ask to all the panels, I will try to subdue the passion that I am trying to express, that our constituents have expressed to us because it's just really frustrating. I don't know what the word is.

It's beyond frustration at this point. But let me ask about, Senator Padilla did a wonderful job of setting the stage of where we've been and how we got here. I am, and I know he is too much more interested on how we're going to get to where we need to be. And there was a few things in the presentation that I want to ask you about so that all of us are very clear about how we're going to get there.

The one that stands out the most and I'll ask about it is a possibility that we do not receive this funding that the President has asked for from Congress, which is not unreasonable, unfortunate, given State of Congress potential, which means a delay. And I want to know what that means so that the public understands what that means and that we understand what that means.

I also want to ask more about an emergency declaration, because that is something that all of our local officials, literally every single one of our local elected officials in the entire county has been demanding and calling on, and certainly many of us as legislators have been requesting. And so I want to ask more about that. So let me start asking these questions.

If the folks who are controlling the slides could pull up the slide regarding the next steps and I think the first, like slide number eight, I believe, sorry, 11. If you could pull up item 11, the status of the expansion project, the solicitation is going to be posted relatively soon. There's a 45-day response period.

And this would be, just to be very clear now, this would be a solicitation only for the first, would it be for the entire project, the $600 million project, a portion thereof? Is this for phase one? What exactly is this solicitation for? Is it for what's funded or would it require more funding? So even if we got a response, we wouldn't be able to build that project until we got the additional funding. Please explain that.

Do you want to take that one or do you need to take? Go ahead.

So we're putting out the solicitation. Our intent is to do a 50 million gallon per day plant. And it's a question of funding that will determine the schedule for completing that project, right? And so we believe that we'll be able to phase it based on the available funding. So we have about 300 million. Now we need about another 300 million.

And so if we don't get the supplemental funding, we'll do what we can with the existing amount and then as additional funding comes in year after year, we will phase it and it will take longer.

So for those of us who are not engineers of plants, if you're roughly getting 50% of the total cost of a 50 million gallon plant, are you roughly building a 50% or 25 million gallons per day plant? Is that what we're going to see as a result of at least what we know we have in the bank sitting there ready to go?

So we believe that we will have additional funding in the out years. It's not just the 300 million we have now, but each year in the future, we will have additional construction funding that we would be able to put into it, to be able to complete it. And we anticipate one of the things about the way that we anticipate proceeding is it's not like you have to wait until everything's done and you turn on the switch and you start treating it.

We think that we can begin to provide additional treatment incrementally, so we don't have to wait until we get the extra 300 million to be able to turn on the switch and improving the treatment.

Let me just say that I think part of the frustration sometimes from all of us and certainly from constituents, is that it sounds like we're making progress, and yet we don't really know what progress is being made. So I want to be as clear as you possibly can be with me here. Given what you do know, what does that actually mean in terms of let's just pretend that we're in a scenario which, again, is not unreasonable unfortunately, given the status of Congress, that we do not get 300 million.

And that maybe you do get some money every year on the out years. What are we going to be able to build with the money that you have now? How much are we going to be able to treat in terms of water.

Assuming that there's no additional funding in any future year? I think we'll have to wait to see when the bids come in.

I think that you have a, by the way, I want to mention another piece that we're all working on collectively that Congressman Peters, Congressman Vargas, the entire San Diego Delegation really has been also championing a provision that would give the authority for the IBWC to receive external fundings, for example, state funding, so that in any scenario in the future, we could just think of more options and be more creative.

And so, for example, we have a smaller pot, the ongoing funding at EPA that is on border infrastructure, and that funding is much smaller. We're sweeping that money to add to this pot. That means nothing for Nogales nothing for Mexicali, you know. And every year that we're going to make that decision, are we going to sweep it again to make progress on this project? That's going to be a decision that we're going to have to make, and we don't want to make that decision.

We want to have that supplemental funding, obviously. But that's why we're being a little bit obtuse here, is because we're going to scrounge. We're going to scrounge. We're probably going to come to the Governor at some point for contribution if they get this authority to see how we make it work. We're going to do whatever we can to move. We live in these neighborhoods, too. That's why we're being a little bit unclear because [inaudible].

Congress. This is very simple. It's a congressional decision. Clearly the President has asked funding. You all want the funding. You all can make this happen. The only barrier at this point is this congressional funding, which again, I should acknowledge our local delegation is on the front end and supporting, right? But you've got to have the majority, as we know.

And so but I do want to leave you and give you one last opportunity to answer in a more direct way what our constituents, what our community can actually expect with the funding that's there in terms of I don't want it to be 45 days from tomorrow or whenever your RFP goes out and you get back bids that say you don't have $6 million. We can't do anything. And then we're facing the public again saying we can't do anything.

So I think it's important, I really do, that we say this is what we think we can do. Understanding the constraints that you're under, this is not something you've chosen to be under. It's what you've been handed. It's what we've all been handed. So I think it's important that we just provide that clarity to certainly the public that's here today and all the other constituents that are interested. So I'll give you one other opportunity to respond to that.

And so I think I just want to reiterate that we are planning to build a 50 MGD plant. And I think it's more an issue of how long it takes to build the plant because we will receive annual appropriations in out years, right? They may be in the tens of millions of dollars rather than in the 300 $1.0 million range. That is what we need. So our intent is to build the 50 MGD plant. It's just a matter of how long it takes to get it done.

It'll get done faster if we get the supplemental Bill and have all the funding available up front.

Okay, so let's talk about funding because that's what it's going to take to get to where we all believe this needs to go for this particular project. There was a couple of mentions that I think are really important that you can help us sort of try to understand. Is there an opportunity there for funding? Because ultimately that's what it's going to take.

Administrator I heard you mentioned something and now you just said it again in a response that gives me a lot of interest and hope here. I think your particular quote when your earlier testimony was funding goes through the states. So that triggered in my mind. So are there other funding sources?

And you have munch mentioned that there are other, like the Border Infrastructure Fund source, other sources of funding, other pots of money, I'll call them, that are out there that are programmatically approved on a regular basis. I'd like to know more about what those are and then subsequent to that, and maybe I can actually have one last question after that. But you mentioned superfund. Super funds are created in extraordinary situations where the environment has been damaged so much that it requires a real special attention.

Super funds also have their own funding stream, which could identify more dollars there. In your opinion, or if you're not comfortable with your opinion, can you talk to me more about what super Fund a super Fund at a site like this, what it would take, what are the steps necessary? Have you thought about that, considered that for this particular site?

Two questions there. Yeah, I'll go backwards. Superfund is really more of a cleanup program. So you're talking lead a lot of arsenic type situations where you're trying to clean the soil for the most part and have the ability to have some level of reuse of that property.

Let me just ask clarifying and that's what's created by the congressional authority or the law that created Superfunds. It defines that as a particular need. So water quality is not included in the authorization of creation of super?

No, we certainly have water quality projects that are super Fund projects that are about cleaning up contamination. Absolutely. That's a huge part of it. Most of it is for beneficial use for usually drinking water as the end beneficial use. I think the kind of box that this project fits into as a wastewater project is really under our Clean Water Revolving Fund. This is the Bipartisan Infrastructure that just is a $50 billion program that was enhanced by the Bipartisan Infrastructure law for five years.

But it's for local governments. It's created for the states and for the locals to be able to carry out these projects. It's not eligible for sister agency. We can't give it to the Navy. We can't give it to the Forest Service. We can't give it to the IBWC. That's a federal constraint. Now, could you get Congress to amend that? Those are kind of still in that same bucket of requiring congressional action to make it eligible.

The only smaller Pot is really the Binational, the infrastructure Pot, that is a much smaller border program, and it's been a long standing program. It's ebbed and flows through the years from like 10 to up to 100 million for the whole border. And we use it all the time. Many of the projects we talked about today, we have used both on both sides of the border. It's a good program. It's a program that is in high demand, over demand.

It's the one I'm referencing when we say if we're going to have a shortfall, we're going to have a yearly decision about what's going to go on the back, what's going to be what.

Is the annual appropriations in that last year?

170,000,036.4 million for Region Six and Region 936.4 million for the nation, which we have part of in Region Six that has the Texas and other border, New Mexico.

Okay, let me ask about the declaration of an emergency. And you've already stated that you have a pathway forward which doesn't require any bypassing of environmental processes. Are there any processes, procedural decision making, anything that is from now until the first shovel goes in the ground or whatever needs to happen for the project to start construction? Is there any federal regulatory process that is going to be required?

And do you know whether that federal process could be a process that's either waived or expedited as a result of an emergency declaration for the expansion? Yes.

No, we've completed that.

All regulatory processes are complete.

Yes.

Okay. My last question to you. We are state Legislature or state. What can the state do to be a participant in solving this problem?

Well, I do want to recognize the leadership that, like I said, obviously Mayor Agira all the way to Governor Newsom have done in really elevating the issue in DC. I mean, the fact that I can say that this is on the President's agenda is something that isn't this year thing. So I want to acknowledge the amount of advocacy that's been taking place from the state and local leadership. It's there. We're there. We're in the supplemental.

I know it's still very hard to do anything in this Congress, but obviously all the work that you're doing to continue to do that is really continue to think creatively with us outside of that as well. And we have that partnership with the state that we're very fortunate about, and we're going to need that creativity. We have to continue to adjust depending on what happens with this supplemental, what happens with the next stage of our continuous resolution.

Our agencies are obviously subject I don't know if you got in the January or the February timeline, but we're all kind of living in that reality right now where we don't even know what the full budget is going to look like every month. So that's an additional constraint.

But to your question on the partnership with the state, there's great projects that are happening right now with the funding that came about through previous legislative efforts that you've all led I know the regional board is leading with the State Board, State Water Resources Control Board, the disbursement of some of those funds. I think that's work. We want to really foster and create where we have local NGOs, local governments taking leadership on some of that immediate relief, like the trash booms.

I haven't talked about it in this forum, but I mentioned other funds, like the Air Monitoring Fund. We also just announced last week, the environmental justice funds, that although IBWC cannot receive that directly, this is a huge opportunity for the region to really seek those funds to do more projects. Those funds are for community based organizations. They have to be a minimum of 10 million to $20 million in vast projects, and they have to be spent in three years.

So that is an opportunity for the region that is not directly building the tanks or expanding the ITP in any way, but it's an opportunity to partner with the local and regional state partners to bring in more of that federal funding.

Thank you. Senator Padilla. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Sorry. Thank you. There we go. Thank you. Assembly Member just to briefly kind of close on this panel and follow up on, I think, the salient point, I think, appreciate the work and appreciate the articulation about the constraints that we face because of the nature of how the federal budget allocations work and the unique nature of this binational sort of infrastructure challenge. It's really at the mercy of that.

And so some of the policy and legal constraints that we're looking to change at the federal level, that would allow us to have a more diversified set of options for a long term financial planning contingency financial planning, which does give me a lot of great comfort to acknowledge the fact. And this is not meant to be non appreciative of the work that's been done.

But the testimony was that even the 50 MGD doubling of capacity at the international water treatment plant alone, just to take one example, which is a key piece in this whole segment of flow, for lack of a better word, literally may or may not be adequate. It may be revised. It's designed and engineered to take us to the year 2040, which isn't far off.

And again, this is an incrementalism and a lack of a total ability to comprehensively plan appropriately to save as to Senator De Rosso's points of question, early incremental costs that keep going up. And so it's sort of in a straitjacket. So, I mean, we're going to be paying very close attention, I think, at the state, as well as being able because you don't need me to tell you that there are a lot of potential organizations, entities, financial entities that exist.

NADbank comes to mind that was designed specifically to mitigate environmental impacts as a result of the original NAFTA One negotiations. These are constructs that exist, that are binational in nature that could be maximized to provide funding streams for long term appropriate capacity planning, financial capacity planning and ongoing O m. That just instead of we're at the mercy of cyclical politics in Washington and beaches are closed for a year or more.

And I'll say it again, I said it before, and I know the mayor will reiterate it, and I'm sorry to say it, but it's a truth that needs to be spoken. If this same set of dynamics were happening in other portions of the coast of California, this would be the number one priority on the planet Earth, full stop. And that's a whole nother conversation and a lot of work that we have to do as a region, but it's unacceptable still.

And so we want to be partners with the state in helping to untangle that. Because it seems pretty glaringly apparent that we are in need of as many financial applications and resources as possible so that we are less. Dependent on the silliness in Washington and that we are able to make sure that we have adequate capacity, progress on infrastructure and we can permanently in the long term make sure that the adequate funding is there to maintain operations. Period.

And I think that's come through to me. And so I appreciate you highlighting that. Just to follow on the Assembly Members questions. I thank you both for your patience. I thank my colleagues for your patience for this panel. We went way over on this panel, but I know that there's a lot of concern and curiosity. So thank you again and we will follow up and safe travels back.

At this time, I would like to invite Yana Garcia, who is the Secretary of EPA for the State of California, and also Lori Walsh, I think supervising water resource control engineer for the regional water quality control board to be available for questions. And Secretary Garcia, thank you for your patience and your participation to focus on the State of California's role in this, both past and present, and appreciate you again being here. Please proceed.

Of course. Thanks for having me and thanks very much to our federal colleagues for that presentation. I do just want to note at the outset, first and foremost, thank you all for your leadership in addressing this issue. Thank you to the Longstanding leaders and advocates, including Mayor Aguirre here and many others in the region who have for too long been looking for a solution. And I do want to acknowledge that we are in a very different place now than we have been in the past.

And I think we all can appreciate the perspective of so many of our local governments, many of whom were involved in years of litigation, dealing with the challenges that we're facing at the Tijuana River, and to now have our federal colleagues here with us talking about comprehensive solutions and making that partnership really happen. Moving forward is a big step and I want to just recognize that at the forefront. Also want to recognize, of course, all the people who are not here. Senator. You mentioned our us.

Senator Baria has been really strongly advocating for a lot of these issues, as has the late Senator Diane Feinstein. And we would not have the additional 300 million plus in the supplemental were it not for their leadership. So I want to start with that. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the state's efforts to make complementary investments.

And I want to underscore that we have had the perspective, which we continue to take, that of course, this is largely a federal responsibility, as it is federal infrastructure, and it is a binational challenge. These are transboundary resources. And the main solution is the expansion project at the ITP at the South Bay ITP. And we've been long engaged in the comprehensive environmental review process as well as identifying the projects that are priority in the record of decision. Reflected in the record of decision.

But in addition to that, we've also made some pretty significant state investments along many of the canyons and gulches that also affect our communities in the San Diego region and in particular along the border and help to manage some of the flows coming into the San Diego region and in particular affecting the estuary since 2019. And I will note that Governor Newsom has been a real champion for these issues and is concerned about these issues just as you all are since he came into office.

But since 2019, at the start of the Newsom Administration, California has invested more than $32 million in Tijuana River Valley Recovery Team projects to mitigate much of the wastewater pollution that our communities suffer from. That includes 9 million to operate and maintain Goat Canyon sediment trash basins. You heard the Regional Administrator mention that some of this is also critical to maintain and manage some of the flows. Nearly five or 4.7 million to rural community assistance corporations.

Tijuana River Trash Boom Pilot project, 14.25 million for the Smugglers Gulch improvement project and a million to Fund reclamation in the Nelson Sloan Quarry, in addition to 3.3 million for Tijuana River Valley Habitat and Hydrology restoration project. So these are projects that have been exclusively state funded fall into what we consider the portfolio of. We are very focused on the fact that this is an environmental justice issue and that has been part of why I think it has been elevated to President Biden's desk as well.

And I know that we share that priority with US. EPA and our colleagues at the federal level. Happy to take any questions. And again, thank you for holding this space and thanks for your ongoing leadership on this issue.

Thank you, Secretary. And I want to reiterate again our community's appreciation for you prioritizing this time and coming and vocalizing the state's role. And I will say and not fortuitously that I know that the Governor has been equally frustrated both publicly and privately, has been making it demonstrably clear that this is an unacceptable situation and sometimes I know that that's a diplomatic and sensitive dance.

But I want to acknowledge that and I want to acknowledge your attention to this issue, either for you or for a technical question regarding the regional board. I know that we have a number of technical enforcement actions pending. Are there staffing, state staffing, resource inadequacies issues on tracking and enforcement? What is the status of some of that action and are there deficiencies that Members of the Legislature should be aware of from the state's enforcement role here, which is also another avenue of pressing the point?

Thank you very much for that question, Senator Padilla, very good question. Currently, our staffing, we have four staff working on this matter about half time, that includes, and an Executive officer that works on this matter pretty much 80% of his time, which certainly does draw away from other matters that the board works on. This is our highest environmental justice priority in the region.

And as the Secretary mentioned, we have put two full time staff on preparing a total maximum daily load for this area, one for trash, one for bacteria. There are 55 other impairments in this area, to the tune of eight to 10 more total maximum daily loads, which is the highest regulatory restriction we can place on a water body pollutant impairment combination. And that would take five full time staff to work on that.

Our Executive officer prepared an assessment of the staffing needs last year, and he would want a full time unit of five staff plus one senior. This would not only be able to provide support to the San Diego Water Board, but also our partner, Colorado River Region Seven. So it would be one unit that could provide resources to both.

Thank you both for that. Senator Durazo, your questions for this panel.

Thank you. Thank you very much for both of you for being here. I think there were some. If you could just I think you already addressed it, but if you could, if there's anything else on prioritizing available state funds, if there's anything that you could add to that and then the issue stood out to me was to address waste tires and plastic pollution. Anything that you could say to those two issues, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Sure appreciate both of those questions. Waste tires and plastic pollution in particular. I'll start with that because I think they merit actually probably a deeper conversation on both issues, but we are well underway in implementing SB 54, which was passed now a couple of years ago. It requires extended producer responsibility, which is new for us in the area of plastics.

This is an area of high priority for myself as well as the Governor and our colleague, Director Wagner at Cal Recycle, as are the waste tire issues. We've long dealt with challenges regarding waste tires that deal with the expenditure, first and foremost, of state funds in Mexico, but also have been long partnering with our colleagues in Baja California to think about potential ways that we can increase monitoring to understand where burning of waste tires is taking place and to better incent different secondary uses for waste tires that don't create that kind of extremely potentially harmful, negative externalities and air pollution burdens in the region.

So happy to talk a little bit more about those efforts and what that looks like, as well as opportunities for additional partnership. You mentioned the prioritization of additional state funds in the 2021 budget, where we funded many of those projects that I listed at that time. And this continues to be sort of the case in our advocacy for federal funding. We have taken the position that that is priority number one is securing federal dollars for the long term solution at the ITP.

That said, I know that we are all open to continuing to identify ways that state dollars may go farther or be able to be used in complementary efforts to make sure that we're planning for some of the surges. As you all mentioned at the start, with the advent of the growth of climate change impacts and the climate crisis, we know that after extreme heat like we've had this year, we have extreme storms. We saw that with Hillary.

We are anticipating that we will have more surge flows. And so ensuring that we are keeping an eye out for that, that we are going to plan for that moving forward. And of course, keeping an open mind to any potential expenditure of state dollars that could complement a federal investment is something that is on our radar.

Thank you again, you mentioned we could follow up, but if you can follow up on issues of which funds could be prioritized, sure, I appreciate that. And second, any again, you can do this in a follow up response. Is there's potential for bonds to be put on the ballot? And I'd like to hear get from you your opinion on how to incorporate the issues being faced here into that potential bond that could go on the ballot. So if you could follow up, I appreciate that, of course.

And I'm happy to follow up with you on the bond piece as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. Doraso. Assemblymember Alvarez.

Thank you, Senator. Also raised really important points on the bond aspect on our side, on the Assembly side, I should say, the work being led by Samantha Garcia, who happens to be my seat maiden. So we've talked a lot about and have really worked to include some language that we believe will be permissive to allowing more funding here. Obviously, definitely need the input from the Department to make sure that that's the case.

And I know that the Senate's also working on a bond on their side and at some point these will come together and we'll figure out where that's ask I wanted to ask you maybe to more clearly talk about the issue of violations. Let me just give you briefly background. I was in public office only through 2018. Was part of all the efforts to try to push the Federal Government to do the right thing, the suing and suing them and all that left.

And in the interim, there was the agreement with IBWC with the sort of settlement, if you will, of those lawsuits. I'm just curious sort of where we stand, where we were with that and where we stand now in terms of these violations that we know are occurring just more clearly. If you could lay that out for me, like where are we?

Do we have enough and I know you also have to limit perhaps what you have to say, but if you can give me as much as you can to understand where we stand today.

Certainly I can answer that question for you. The San Diego Water Board, we have issued, as the secretary mentioned, notices of violation in September and October and November, and we are continuing. We have one staff that looks at that each month. If violations occur in the future, we will address those as appropriate.

Let me ask you for clarity just on that. So, last few months violations, but it's the Federal Government, right? So what does that mean?

Correct. We use all the tools that we can in our enforcement policy when we're dealing with trying to encourage, maybe even coerce compliance. And since it's the Federal Government, we cannot issue them a civil penalty. So we do try to emphasize collaborating, cooperating, communication. Actually, we have a staff Member down at the treatment plant every week. They either attend the meeting in person along with our Executive officer or via Zoom.

So to have a staff person present at a wastewater treatment plant on a weekly basis is truly unheard of. We inspect the plant once a week. So we are in the know on what's going on as far as the repairs, and we are also reviewing all their documentation that they provide in terms of exceedances of their permit requirements. And if there are exceedances, then we issue the notice of violation. And that has happened for the last three months in a row.

Okay, very helpful. Thank you. From the testimony you heard earlier, since you do have that presence and you are really well versed, what is your concern about being able to actually achieve a status of no violations as it relates to their plan of action going forward?

Yeah, the common thread has been the consistent funding for operation and maintenance. You've heard all morning about the funding needed to upgrade the plant. That plant, as far as a wastewater treatment plant in the United States of America, is really in bad shape. So it needs to be expanded and it needs to have a constant stream of funding to keep up with the operation and maintenance once that happens. Wastewater treatment is not literally rocket science.

It is processes and systems that we are very familiar and know how to do it in order to produce effluent that does not impact our environment and also is protective of human health. So with that sort of funding to operate and maintain a treatment plant, the effluent will be in compliance with a permit.

I should have asked this question to the earlier panel, but maybe you can help us understand better.

Right? Very good question. I am not the appropriate person to give you a number, but I can say just narratively. They need the proper amount of money to make sure a 25 million gallon plant right now up to the 50 million gallon plant that they can operate it. Do they have the right amount of pumps in Reserve? Do they have the right amount of materials on site? If something breaks down, can they swap it out in a relatively quick manner? It's generally that with operation and maintenance.

I'll take that question with me. Certainly one that I think needs to be asked to ensure that as budgets on an annual basis are being presented by the Federal Administration and Congress, that that's included beyond this treatment plant, which is certainly at the moment the most critical project that needs to be completed. We know there are other projects that you've identified and the work that the board has done has identified. Some of those projects have required and utilized state assistance.

What is your expectation on a going forward basis? The same that we expect the Federal Government to Fund that plant for operations and maintenance and certainly to build it. What is the state's expectation of what our responsibility is going to be on a regular ongoing basis? This problem can also be...

Yeah, that's a good question. So I think our responsibility to continue to invest in many of the sort of attenuated but related projects along the canyons and gulches that will continue. I think we are invested in seeing those succeed and seeing them be effective over the long term.

To get to some of what I think you're getting at assemblymember and the question around cost, this is likely obvious, but we've had a lot of exchange on cost and what the cost options are. We have taken the position at the state level that we would like the full cost of implementation for the record of decision projects to be fully funded. That price tag can reach as far as 900 million.

And we are also very aware that it is important and imperative that we take what we can get as soon as possible so that we do not cause any delay. But I do underscore that because the record of decision process was comprehensive and there are projects there that I think we would all stand by as being critically necessary for the ITP. And so I just wanted to make sure that you are aware of that.

But I would say from the state side, we are fully committed to ensuring that our current investments are fully operational and effective over the long term. And we are committed to doing what we need to do to make sure that that happens.

Thank you. And you mentioned the full price tag, the 900 million, if I remember correctly. Please correct it, correct me if I'm wrong, that is a one time infrastructure investment.

That actually accounts for not just the one time, but longer term maintenance, if I'm not mistaken.

I think on that one. I'll ask you because I don't expect you to have a response today, but I'll ask you to also provide us what, even if we believe, which I think we do, that this is a federal responsibility on all of those projects, auxiliary projects. Canyons you mentioned all those what those costs are, so that we know what they are, we identify them and understand what that potential state contribution could be.

And if not state, then that we can talk to the Federal Government and say, you've got to contribute. That beyond the annual operations of the plant. The last thing I'll say, because I have the Senators here, we have a Bill before a Committee in the Senate working on trying to make sure that I believe, a lot of us believe that California can potentially make some investments on the Mexican side to help us expedite fixing this problem and helping to solve this problem.

And we need to make sure we have the authority to do so. We have some limitations as it relates to expenditure of state funds on the Mexican side. Hopefully, if I can get this Bill through the Committee, you'll be eventually seeing it on the Senate side and definitely interested in hearing more from the Department, from the board on how to make that a Bill that could be a vehicle that could be usable for us to use funds from us in Mexico in the future. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Assembly Member. And I just reminded from the federal planning perspective by my capable ledge Director, Mr. Castro at the EPA's evaluation on the comprehensive infrastructure solution, estimated cost of $627,000,000.26 annually for ONM and 1.6 billion over 40 year cycle and broke that out as well. So that helps kind of put a finer point. And again, to my earlier comment, I think that we can overcome some of the federal legal constraints. We can get a lot more creative.

To the Assembly Member's recent point about other options for seems insane to have critical infrastructure like this in a binational region without permanent capital funding program or planning and permanent operational funding. It seems just insane to me. It's not a zoo exhibit and it's not California's problem, but we have to sit and mitigate it.

So it's really fascinating and challenging, but I think we can play a huge role here and appreciate the work that you've done and appreciate both of your availability to answer questions and to present today. Thank you so very much. And just to check in with everyone, including our Members. The remaining panel is a panel on impacts, which will be the Honorable Paloma Guerre, mayor of the City of Imperial Beach, and then a presentation by Dr. Jeff Bowman, who's associate Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

I think the plan, if it's okay with everyone, is we'll take this panel have been very patient, take that Q&A, and then perhaps we'll take a brief biostretch recess and we'll take public comment and wrap, if that's okay with everyone. So I would invite our colleague and an amazing leader in our region and our coastal Commissioner, the Honorable Paloma Aguirre, Mayor of the City of Imperial Beach. Mayor, welcome.

Thank you so much. Honorable chair. Senator Durazo, Assembly Member Alvarez. Thank you so much for the invitation and for the opportunity to give the perspective of the City of Imperial Beach. My name is Paloma Aguirre. I was elected to the City of Imperial Beach as Mayor last year. This is my first year as mayor. I was earlier elected in 2018 as the first Latina Council Member in the City of Imperial Beach.

But my journey didn't start there as far as this fight, I became involved in 2005 on this issue after surfing in polluted water for quite some time, as many of us have had to do in the City of Imperial Beach. I like to say I'm its adopted daughter. I wasn't born or raised there, but in 2001, I made it my home, just like many more people have, because of its people, because of its waves, because it's a beautiful community.

We are a community of roughly 27,000 residents. We are a military town. We are a minority majority community. We have beautiful natural resources. We have the Tijuana Estuary to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the west, the South Bay to the north. And we continuously work towards our mission, which is to enhance classic Southern California. A community that is beach oriented, a small, family friendly community rich in natural and cultural resources. We were talking about incremental progress, right?

I have, as I mentioned, been on this journey since 2005, having been part in my previous life as an advocate, part of the International Boundary and Water Commission Citizens Forum Board. I was co chair twice. My colleague here. Chris HallMore, natural resources Director for the City of Imperial Beach. We were involved in the development of Minute 320. Many working meetings, many working groups. We were asked to be patient back then. That was in 2012. It was finally signed in 2015.

Here we are in 2023 with Minute 328, and the situation is as dire as it's ever been. So today I want to talk about why the City of Imperial Beach is in a full State of emergency. Next slide, please. As some of you have mentioned, we are approaching our 800 consecutive days of beach closures in the southern end of our beach. The main stretch of beach in Imperial Beach has been closed every single day this year and we expect it to continue to be closed.

Next slide, please. The challenges for the City of Imperial Beach are great because we are a very small community with a very small budget. As you can see, this is just an example. We're roughly $29 million operating budget per year, but we face tremendous challenges of international degree. Next slide, please. We have been so severely affected. Our economy has been affected because of our beach closures. I mean, it's pretty straightforward.

We used to host international events such as the Ironman, where we would have triathlons, come to our beach, run our streets, do our swims, and now that was a significant source of income to us. That has been had to be canceled as many other ocean focused events have been canceled as well, such as surf contest and just other events that bring revenue to our city. Next slide, please. Our Junior Guard program, which is this was one of the last classes of our Junior Guards.

It's a tremendously important source of building ocean stewardship in our young generations, but it's also a significant and important pipeline for our lifeguards. And unfortunately, that program has had to be canceled because the kids can't even use their beach. They can't go out into the open water, they can't learn life saving skills, and kids are spending they actually spent their first summer this year without being able to participate in this program that so many families rely on and look forward to every year.

And I also want to mention so many of the nonprofits that operate in our beaches like YMCA, Camp Surf and other outdoor outreach that bring kids that usually don't have access to the beach know other areas of the county are unable to access our ocean waters in the area of Imperial Beach in Coronado. Next slide, please.

Well, needless to say, I'm sure you all have seen in the news and in the articles and multiple articles that have come out recently, how severely this has been affecting our community as far as public health. The situation as we've been talking about all morning, the pipeline, the 42 inch pipeline that broke on the Mexican side because of the boring, the increased rainfall this year related to unseasonal weather variability and a number of different factors have increased the odors throughout our community in the past.

And this is, I want to say, quite sad. Our baseline has been well, it smells by the beach, right? But now that's not even our baseline. Our baseline is now it smells and permeates everywhere through our city, everywhere through Nester, San Isidro, and even areas of Chula Vista that are closer to the 905 are receiving some of these orders.

Thankfully, the Air Pollution Control district with funding from the US EPA was able to jumpstart a pilot project where they have located sensors throughout different areas of the River Valley, well, in the South San Diego area. And they're going to be installing some in Imperial Beach so that they can measure hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide, which are gases that emanate from sewage that have the ability or the capacity to cause headaches, nausea and dizziness. But some folks, as the article in the Union Tribune reported, have taken it upon themselves to put sensors within their own homes.

And you have folks that are unable, especially during the summer months, were unable to open their windows because the odors were so strong and severe. And even with the windows closed, these sensors were still picking up some of these gases. And it's obviously extremely concerning when it comes to people who have immunocompromised systems or children who tend to have asthma or other types of illnesses. Right, next slide, please.

Now, this year has been a year of many, firsts for us in Imperial Beach and not of the good kind. We underwent our first boil water advisory back in August where a sample that was taken in this map, you can see the red area on the left. The very lowest corner of that map is where one of the samples tested positive for E-Coli. And we were directed to boil our water, which we've never had to do.

And also we were forced well, not forced, but we were asked to close all of our businesses. It was three days that every single one of our businesses was unable to operate. We never saw that type of economic impact to our local businesses, not even during COVID Many families couldn't afford to go and buy pellets of drinking water, so we had to distribute drinking water to our residents during those three days. Next slide, please. We had to distribute drinking water during those days.

So it had tremendous public health and economic impacts. This boil water advisory, we have been told that there is an investigation taking place to determine if this is tied to the sewage contamination that we now know because of Scripps Institution of Oceanography study, that sewage can become aerosolized and travel at great distances. So the likelihood of that sample being contaminated by air, we don't know. All we know is that we had a boil water advisory.

And I'm going to talk a little bit more about the health impacts of that. But I just want to really make clear the types of things that the City of Imperial Beach has to think that no other city has to deal with. This is a picture of one of our coastal flooding events where you have the combination of king tides with high surf. Thankfully, this specific event, we didn't have a winter storm pushing the water on shore.

We have had that where we've had even more severe flooding. But this street is a residential street and as you can see, there are human feces on our streets. And this situation is not going to be rare. It's going to become more commonplace. Scripps Institution of Oceanography has projected that by 2050, these one to two day events a year will become 100 days related to sea level rise.

So when other cities are thinking of their stormwater or water supply conveyance systems, infrastructure becoming damaged because of sea level rise in saltwater intrusion, we're having to think, well, all of that saltwater intrusion has sewage in it and it has a potential to infect our residents. Next slide, please. And sadly, that's exactly what happened during the Boil Water Advisory.

Following the Boil Water Advisory, my office was contacted by several different residents who lived on Seacoast Drive, which is some of the pictures that I just showed you that have documented cases of having contracted Shigella and E-Coli infections. One of the women that spoke to us spent, I believe, three to five days in the hospital and had to have someone, the nurses and medical attendees, dressed in hazmat suits to tend to her needs.

So it's extremely concerning that we will see this happen again and again, because we all know that even though Tropical Storm Hillary was, I guess, an anomaly of sorts, we don't expect that to be infrequent. If anything, we're going to see more frequent, unusual, unseasonal weather events. Next slide, please. So it's been said earlier that every single mayor in this county has called for a State of emergency. The City of San Diego has declared a State of emergency.

The City of Imperial Beach has declared a State of emergency. We have colleagues that have joined our call all the way up to City of Pacifica, City of Santa Barbara, and the County Board of Supervisors of Santa Cruz has also called for a State of emergency, as well as our own County of San Diego. And I just want to acknowledge and thank Governor Newsom for prioritizing this issue by sending a letter and then reiterating it with a second letter to President Biden.

And thankfully, because of that, there has been that supplemental emergency funding request. As has been mentioned earlier, being subjected to the congressional appropriations process is no longer an option for us. We were talking about people having died in Ogales. That is something we don't even know if that's the case. What we do know is we've had cases of MRSA infections, we've had cases of meningitis infections, obviously Shigella and E-Coli. Our local South Bay clinic has seen an increase in gastrointestinal cases that they have found.

Once they pull that data of people they're treating and beach closures, it totally correlates. So that's extremely concerning for us. So we also at the Coastal Commission have sent a letter to President Biden asking him to use the full extent of his presidential authority to not just prioritize and make the request to Congress, but to actually declare this a State of emergency or a State of disaster? Next slide, please. And this is just a graphic. This was already covered by my colleague, Secretary Spiener.

But what I will say is there's been much conversation about the State of emergency, and the State of emergency would be helpful when it comes to suspension of statue. And in the beginning, when we were talking about that, we were interested in suspending the Federal Acquisition Regulation. But as you have heard today, the bidding and procurement process is already underway. The environmental review process, the NEPA process has been completed.

But where the major roadblock that we see is still present is the inability of IBWC to receive funding from anywhere else than the Department of State. Their contributed funding authority is where we need to have changed. And again, that is subject to congressional approval. And that is just a luxury that we do not have anymore. We don't know how many cases of people are currently sick.

We don't know how many cases of people we have in Imperial Beach and South Bay that potentially have lost their lives. This is an area where we need the full support of our state and our President to better assess where we stand in that area of public health and to really prioritize this issue to the level it needs to be, which is a State of emergency. And I'll leave it at that. And I already mentioned this. These are the asks.

I do want to mention one last thing before I forget. The Tijuana River diversion is a huge component of what we're asking. It is listed in the record of decision. But the thing is, even with the 50 million gallons per day expansion of the treatment plant, if we don't take and divert Low to medium sized flows in the Tijuana River for treatment, that won't bring us to 90% reduction in beach closure days. And that's a fact. So I'll leave it at that and make myself available for any questions you might have.

Thank you very much, Mayor, Commissioner, very grateful to you for your voice and your leadership. And I know that you're put in a very unique position in the state and in the nation. Being a southernmost city in our state and country, being in the middle of a critical region in the middle of a very difficult situation, it is often difficult to lift a voice to power in a way that there are no good outcomes sometimes.

And folks are focused, as I said at the onset of this hearing, and just to be clear and blunt, too focused on the politics and not focused enough on the solutions. And you have been put in an awful position because no matter what you said or did, somebody was upset. And I'm just going to add my voice to yours and help lift you up and help lift up your voice with our own ability to do that.

And I'm certain that the Assembly Member and the Senator join me in that. Is it's not appropriate for you to be put in that position. You are doing your job as the mayor of Imperial Beach and as the California Coastal Commissioner. And these issues need to be front and center. They need to be prioritized. And your professional background is also uniquely suited to help us think outside the box about things that we may be overlooking we may be forgetting.

Things perhaps the state can do in the near term on Mitigation. In the interim, until we fix some of the fundamental federal issues or we find a way to go around them, or we find ways to enhance that. But I wanted to express that publicly to you because you've taken a lot of stuff, but you have shown great courage, political and personal, and I think we should all acknowledge you for that.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator. That was very kind. I'm just doing my job, and I do it gladly, no matter what.

Yes, ma'am. You are Assembly Member. Any questions for the mayor or follow up? I know you've articulated some.

Yeah. Again, thank you. And, yeah, we wouldn't perhaps even be having this hearing if it wasn't for your voice, so I appreciate that. I have to ask a question I asked the federal folks, what else can the state do? What can the Legislature do? What can the state do to continue to not only express our support, but demonstrate it in ways that help us to a resolution?

I think what the Legislature can do is bring forward a resolution declaring this a State of emergency, even if it's not under the Stafford Act. The case has been made that perhaps is not the best avenue to take from the state's perspective, but I think, one, it would create and raise awareness at statewide awareness, which is something we need from all Members in our Legislature. Right.

Because we need to have vehicles that will get us faster funding and necessary funding, such as your Bill, the NADbank Bill, that would give the ability of IBWC to receive state funding, to have support, and to send a clear message as well that if and when that Bill makes it to the Governor's desk, he can sign it because he knows that it is a priority for us statewide. There's no bigger environmental injustice or public health crisis as we're seeing the one that we see here today anywhere in the state and I would argue in the nation.

Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

We are grateful for you, your leadership, and your patience today. I'd like to invite Dr. Jeff Bowman up associate Professor, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, for your presentation about an I think invaluable tool. Thank you, Professor.

Well, first off, I want to thank the Committee for the Opportunity to come and give a little bit of an update into some of the work that we've been doing in this area. So I'm not going to spend much time giving background on this problem. It's been very well described and the folks here are very familiar with it.

I will touch briefly on if I can get the slide to advance here on some of the previous work that's been done has been alluded to so far today. Some of the work that has shown, particularly the pink dye study that has shown how the sewage is transported along the coastline in Imperial Beach and further north within the county. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation, EPA and really helped us understand how things are moving around out there.

What we're trying to do now is take this information, add a biological component to it, and move it towards an operational forecast model to allow the coastal communities to better understand the risks associated with these sewage transport problems. The basic goal that we're trying to solve here is given in this scenario.

If you're a resident within South County and you're trying to decide whether you can safely visit the coastline on a given day at a given location, you need a tool that can tell you, a tool that understands how. Sewage is transported in this area and a tool that understands how the biology that might be contained within that sewage is experienced in the environment.

We have an interdisciplinary team that is working on this problem that consists of both physical oceanographers and biologists, and this tool, in addition to providing a direct resource for residents, is going to provide a really critical tool for policymakers as we try to understand how these infrastructure improvements are actually impacting these coastal communities and the environment. So we'll actually have a tool that's able to tell us what the risk is associated with this problem as we move forward into the future.

So, as I mentioned before, there are really two components to this. We understand a bit the physics of this system and how water is being transported along the coastline. We have a less of an understanding of the ecology of the specific disease agents or pathogens that might be present within this sewage. We're working on that element and we're going to bind both of these features into a working forecast model.

The goal here is to provide a regional three to five day forecast for beach users and coastal communities. We'll be able to look out three to five days into the future and understand what the relative risk of exposure to disease agents or pathogens might be. This strongly leverages previous investments at the federal level by the National Science Foundation and by the North American Development Bank and EPA.

And I'll mention here, this does also complement some of the Scripps airborne pathogen research that was alluded to in the previous presentation. Special thanks to Senator Padilla and the other San Diego State congressional Members for supporting the development of this forecast model. We were able to get underway with this with some appropriations in August this year. We've been moving fairly fast. We have $3 million in funding to build this product. As I mentioned, we're leveraging heavily previous federal investments.

I'm going to point to four specific components to the tool that we are putting together. There's a computing component, a field data collection component, a laboratory component, and then a distribution component. Very briefly, on the computing side, we need to set up the hardware infrastructure to support the forecast model. We'll be running this forecast model in real time for the benefit of the coastal communities. We need to develop the specific pathogenogen ecology model and integrate it with the existing hydrodynamic model.

We need to develop a certain amount of computer code to run these models in real time, as well as develop the interface for public access. On the field side, we are deploying real time instrument moorings and sensors to assimilate the data that the model will actually use to make its predictions. And we'll also use these observations to validate the model. In addition to these real time instruments, we will be sampling manually with vessels and along the shoreline to complement the existing San Diego County sampling efforts.

So it'll provide an opportunity for us to validate the performance of the model. On the laboratory side, the key thing that needs to be done here is to determine the lifetime of the disease agents out there in the environment. We have a very poor understanding as these specific disease agents get out there in the environment with the sewage, how long they last, how long they're harmful to humans. This is a key point that we're trying to address.

Once we have this model, we'll be distributing it via the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System, or SCOOS. They have a fairly mature, public facing infrastructure already to support the distribution of data. All right, quick words on the status of the project. On the computing side, we have purchased all of the hardware, and we're expecting delivery by March of 2024, and it should be fairly fast for us to set up the hardware once we have it in place. We're moving very fast.

On the pathogen ecology side, we've acquired the necessary equipment to do the experimental work and the observations. This is digital droplet PCR technology, similar to what the county is using to make their observations. We've hired some additional personnel to lead this effort. We are coordinating closely with San Diego County and other stakeholders to share samples and data and procedures.

We've received all the necessary permits and approvals to begin work with Norovirus and other pathogens at Scripps, and we have permits pending for the necessary sampling with California State Parks. On the real time mooring side, mooring instrumentation was purchased. Full delivery by January. Test of the real time data transmission expected. Early next month. Then we'll be building out the full arrays over the coming months. That's all I have. I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much, Dr. Bowman. I appreciate the work. And just maybe just briefly, I think one of the things that the attending public may know, maybe in layperson's terms, is to understand, once we get the prediction model and we get the actual tool, how is that different than prior modeling, prior protocols for looking at pathogen risk? To put it simply, in the old days, how were things done, and how is this efficacy increased? How is it a better value to the public? Where are we going with this? So they have an understanding of really what we're developing in terms of its utility?

Absolutely. So with the existing observations and tools, we have a good understanding of when sewage is present in the environment. And as noted in the previous presentations, it's pretty much there all of the time until the infrastructure improvements are able to mitigate that problem. What we don't have an understanding of with the existing tools is what the risk is that's associated with that sewage. That's the component that we're trying to bring in here. We don't know what disease agents are in there.

We don't know when the disease agents are higher in concentration, lower in concentration exceeding some infectious dose or not exceeding it. And that level of nuance is going to allow users to not necessarily fully access the environment again, but to at least have a more nuanced understanding of when it is more or less safe to coexist with this environment.

Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate that Assemblymember.

Yeah, just briefly, to follow up on that, and I think Mayor Aguirre mentioned this, but when I was Council Member, I represented as far east, if you will, from here as Otay Mesa, and I was just down two days ago, I was in San Yiectro, and the odor is I mean, it's very just it's very present.

And so the fact that I'm even asking a question related to odor just seems like, again, beyond a conversation we should be having in America, but we are to the point of diseases and the airborne. How is this going to help identify whether the smell and the presence of particulate matter in the air potentially can lead to disease? Or can you talk more about that component of it?

Because it can very easily stay out of the water, but you can't not come out of your house, and unfortunately, even in the house, the smell is in there. What will we also be able to learn, if anything, from this project going forward?

Yeah, thank you. It's an excellent, really interesting question. I think we do need to be careful to draw a distinction between the waterborne pathogens and any potential airborne pathogens. There is a separate project at Scripps that's looking specifically into the potential transport of airborne pathogens but it's a fairly separate effort with a different set of environmental problems associated with it. With this, we're focused pretty specifically on what's in the water and how long is it persisting in the water and when does it present a real risk to residents.

Well, this is going to sound like, again, a ridiculous question. I think we all assume that this smell and odor is as a result of this. But I guess what I'm trying to get at is, is there going to be ability to either correlate or directly identify the activity that you'll be monitoring with this particular project to the other project on the airborne?

Yeah, thank you. Yes, very much. So with this product, we'll have a much broader understanding of how these pathogens are distributed across the coastal environment. And then taking that data set and correlating it to the existing data that's coming from sensors that are looking at some of the gases that were alluded to in the previous presentation or observation. Substantial pathogens. Those two data layers can certainly be correlated and will provide a much deeper understanding of these two problems.

And when do you expect the first data set to be publicly available?

That is a number that I don't have. I could take that back to the team and come back and be very.

Happy to provide an estimate about your public interface system. Also, you probably don't know that yet.

We do not. So we've only been spinning up since August when the funding was available to us. So we are very early stages, but things are moving very rapidly, so expect it to take not too long, building on the existing work that's been done.

Thank you.

Thank you. Assembly Member. Thank you very much, Dr. Bowman. Appreciate your work and appreciate your patience here today and participation. I think that we all do. All right. I think before public comment, which we are interested in hearing from all of you or whoever desires to address the Select Committee before you do that, we'll do a very brief five minute stretch and bio break for everyone. So the Select Committee will stand in recess for five minutes and we will reconvene. Testing, one, two, three.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you'll please take your seats. The Select Committee will reconvene. Appreciate your patience. I hope everyone had a chance to stretch, breathe a little bit, take care of whatever you need to take care of. Appreciate your patience and your attendance. This time we'll move to public comment. It's an opportunity to address the Select Committee. Our purpose here is to listen, gather information, hear from community. There are a number of you who have signed up to speak today.

Your testimony and your input is most welcome. Again, I'll reiterate the sort of decorum comments that I made at the beginning of the hearing. When I call your name, I'll call a name. And the two who've signed up after, please just queue up here in the center aisle. We'll begin when I call your name. If you are willing, please step forward. State your name for the record. We'll limit your time to two minutes. So I'll go through the queue here.

Mr. John Acosta, Delia Cervantes, followed by Lily Molina. Mr. Acosta. Welcome.

I would also like to encourage you to ask students who may be future leaders to be a part of these conversations and committees. It is through knowledge and experience that we can help resolve issues like these in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. One of the things that I mentioned to Senator Durazo that when she asked the panel here about what do they have to do to stop the cause. And like I mentioned to Senator, it was a political answer where they talk and they didn't answer the answer they gave you, we expect, we plan it should. Those are not the answers.

So therefore, one of the things that we need to know when, what's going to happen. The problem is the problem is back in Mexico, way in Mexico, all the solutions and all the costs and all the expenses that be done over here is costing. But what is Mexico is doing over there? We need to make Mexico responsible for that. Because as long as they're not responsible, they're not going to do nothing about it.

Teach you a map that nobody has gone to those fields up there, that's the Gloria. And over there, if you go over there, I know, because you're not trouble. Everywhere I go everywhere. If you go over there, there is no swish plumbing. There is no sewage plumbing. One of the things that I could see in Tijuana doesn't really enforce building. So therefore, whenever they build in the colonials, there is no swish plumbing. So it goes to the street, and something has to be done.

Like I said, it has to be there. In Mexico, they're talking about the presence. They need to get both presence in a room and talk to each other. Why? Because they send a Bill, they send different ideas. By the time they get over there, it gets diluted. So therefore, it has to be between the big leaders. They have to come up with a solution because it's costing a lot of money. And one of the things I'm really concerned I know I'm out of time. I'm really concerned about the senior community.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate your participation. Delia Cervantes, followed by Lily Molina, followed by Lori Walsh.

Thank you, Steve Padilla. Our David Alvarez left. And thank you, Ms. Marie-Elena Durazo, for coming. It really warms the heart to know that it's finally hit you guys to the point that you're going to do something or trying to. We saw the dialogue. You couldn't get an answer. We saw. So thank you for bringing us here. It shows that you're trying. You can't get an answer. You can't get that cooperation. You need a couple of things here. What else do the feds need?

To declare a State of emergency or for the state to declare it. Mayor Paloma, you see her? She's trying. She's filling her heart over this. I was raised in Apparel Beach. I went to Emory elementary. My daughter taught at Central. My sister taught at Emory Harborside and of course, Anianta I was raised. I went to Mar Vista Junior, back when they called them Junior Highs and Mar Vista High School. I know what the community is feeling. My sister still lives there.

They have to close their windows by 4:35 o'clock because I'm reading her text. She couldn't be here. She took our mom to the Doctor. The smell comes in from even their shower drains the sinks and it creeps through the front doors. That smell wakes me up. This is my sister quoting. Wakes me up from how bad the house smells. Lucky we have double windows, and that helps the smell. They can't enjoy their spot.

My brother in law, my sister have a horse over there, off of Hollister by Smuggler's Gulch. We were just told they fixed something at Smuggler's Gulch. We don't know what they fixed. My brother in law just goes and feeds the horses there. But even the horses, the animals are suffering. They just can't speak. The children go to schools. There's all these schools. I'm so sorry. I thought I was still had a bit of time. We have to remember the little children. They can't speak. It's just the adults sharing it. The kids just think it smells like that all the time.

Thank you for your participation. Lily Molina, followed by Lori Walsh.

Thank you very much for having me. I'll try to be brief. An idea that I have is to have an additional charge at the border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana could be the best solution. It's the busiest land port entry into Western Hemisphere. 70,000 northbound vehicles per day, 20,000 northbound pedestrians cross each day. It's a critical economic engine to San Diego and Tijuana region. 48 million cars and trucks cross each year.

Almost 45 billion in trade crosses annually through the Takata and Otap ports of entry. Several proposals. The Century program. We could do a binational surcharge to support the treatment plant. It could include a fast pass for walking and driving across the border. It could be akin to what previously existed with the Coronado Bridge cross border fees 50 cents per person crossing times 70,000 crossers and vehicles 50 cents per person. Pedestrians times 20,000 crossers generate over $16 million annually, not including fees generated from the Sentry program.

The airport fees and commercial trucks cross border international service need to be paid as a fees with all northbound crossings to include international air travel, sentry passes, all commercial border crossing and pedestrian crossings, kiosks to handle payments with a few more support staff and we look forward to continuing with the collaboration. Thank you so much. And briefly, our Navy Seals are first responders. Our lifeguards have to go in the ocean every day, day in, day out, to save lives.

They're not giving the protection by investing with our U. S. Taxpayer. All I wish to thank actually Senator Padilla and Assembly Member David Alvarez for addressing this issue with other leaders. You're very much appreciated. I thank you for your time.

Thank you for participating. Laurie Walsh followed by Sophia Garcia, followed by Brian McNeese. I hope I got that correct. Laurie Walsh, are you present and would like to address the Select Committee? Sophia Garcia, are you present like to address the Select Committee? Please come forward. Welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Sophia Garcia and I am a 6th grader and a student in the Chula Vista Elementary School District. And I attend Cook elementary, Cook elementary. I'm a student from an interbaccalaureate world school which focuses on creating future world leaders. This is an issue of great importance to us as students because like they have said a while ago, our kids and grandkids will experience this issue. But unfortunately, us students, we are the grandkids. We are the ones to inherit it.

I have been to several presentations and I saw many different speakers on this specific topic, but there was a lot of focus on who was to blame and not much on how to fix it. So I'm here today as a student to say thank you, Senator Padilla. And thank you for the opportunity to be here today to learn more about what's being done and to be able to ask questions and be a part of the solution.

Sophia, I have to say I am impressed and grateful for your engagement. Spread it among your classmates. You guys are the very, very grateful. You did very well. Thank you. And we've heard you.

Yes. Thank you.

All right, Brian McNeese. I think I read that correctly. Followed by Alan C, followed by Mitch Silverstein. Do we have Brian in the house? All right. How about Alan? Yeah. Please step forward. Welcome.

Hey. Welcome back to the chambers. $42 billion, 350,000 jobs. That's our take for the Ota Mesa Crossing do you want to really solve this problem at our level? Mexico, we've had a reaches close for 700 days. Let's close. This month will close all commerce. Not traffic, just commerce for one day.

Next month, it'll be two days. Following month will be two weeks. Watch how fast Mexico will solve the problem, because it's not just Tijuana sewage. It's punta. I can't pronounce. I apologize. I want to tear this up. Campotoros Punta Baderas. We all know it. There's multiple sewage plants. They're dumping raw sewage. So this old thing we're doing at the one plant will not accomplish it won't accomplish anything. By the way, local funding, we closed four dams at this Klamath River.

You want to get funding for this one? We got a wildlife refuge down there. Use that. Use that and call it wildlife refuge. And then you can get the funding. But the funding needs to go further and push Mexico to do their part, because we're spending millions of dollars, and yet they're getting ready to lose billions of dollars. You just should close commerce for one day. You want to get fire, you want to get results, make that the issue. And, Professor, your tool is phenomenal.

But my concern is if we go further, instead of putting money into these tools and monitor the problem, which you've known for, like, 60 years, we need to have solutions fixed. Please look into that. It's a bold step. It's an easy step. If you make it easy, Mexico either fix it, or we shut you down for one day. And every month following increase that take until we fix it. Because I miss our sandcastle building days. I miss that.

I lived in Pearl Beach for about maybe about 10 years serving the Navy. I'm now a current Chula Visa resident, and I see what's going down there. And all you got to do is walk on the beach, go 10 minutes south, and you're standing that same sewage you saw in that water spill that the mayor showed that's coming right out of that river. And if we divert that river back in now, we got mosquito infestation because we're holding the sewage. Instead of going to the ocean, now we're going to infect the people. I yield back. Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Mitch Silverstein. I'm the San Diego County policy manager for the Surfrider Foundation. I'm here today in place of our clean border water now campaign manager Sarah Davidson, who is at this very moment meeting with IBWC Commissioner Hinar and the Statement Department to demand the required funding to properly address this public health and environmental emergency. I stand here today feeling two very opposite emotions.

On one hand, I'm extremely grateful that our local leaders are elevating this issue to the level it deserves and that everyone in this room is firing on all cylinders to solve it. From local leaders like Mayor Iguire to our state reps in both the Senate and Assembly to staffers from our federal reps and federal agencies and every resident and stakeholder on this issue. And Senator Padilla, of course, thank you for calling this meeting. And I really appreciate your specific and pointed questions to the representatives here.

Just kind of cutting through that technocratic Jargon that really ends up marginalizing everyday folks who are stakeholders on this issue. So really, thank you so much. And Senator Durazo and Assembly Alvarez, Member Alvarez too, a really great job with your questions. While I'm grateful for all of your efforts and all of our efforts, I'm frustrated and aghast at how long this has taken and how slow our progress has been on this issue. We're at the point when real solutions finally exist.

But it's taken four years to spend 10 million of 300 million dedicated funding to this issue. We should have had an emergency declaration years ago. And while I'm elated to see a doubling of the international treatment plant, I can't help but remind myself that the day that plant opened in the already insufficient Senator, secretary Spanner said it herself, the plant is like driving a car 100 without a time for gas, without time to pull over for gas or tuna.

Our Federal Government is always underinvested in the South Bay quality of life or despite how critical this issue is and despite how critical this region is to international trade, there's someone from almost every state and federal office here today. I'm wondering, is there anyone from Governor Newsom's office here today? I think someone needs to call that out. To my knowledge, he's never been down here to face this issue firsthand. And I know all of you have.

And it's worth noting that he was just in San Diego during tropical storm Hillary, but left our biggest environmental disaster off the agenda, despite the fact that the worst consequence of the hurricane was the sewage pollution. So I'm sorry I'm going long, but surffrider joined Marigire and pretty much every single living, breathing person in San Diego County to demand a State of emergency from the Governor, but to no avail.

Now we're urging him to make that request to the President in the strongest, most emphatic language possible. Please help him with that demand. Thank you so much for all your hard work.

Thank you very much for your patience. Next is Nicolas Buenvillagee, if I read that correctly. If I did not, I apologize. It's Nicolas present. If not, I have Baron Partlard or part? Forgive me if I messed that up. Please come forward. Welcome.

Distinguished board, public, neat media, Baron Partlow, former citizens foreign board Member of the United States international Boundary Water Commission, San Diego section, founder of Stop the Poop Tijuana River Valley outreach. I don't even know where to begin.

Mr. Alvarez said frustration. How does and he couldn't describe the ICANN incomprehensible, unfortunate and pitiful demoralization due to the horrific and epic proportions in which we are forced to endure in an environmental and biological attack on the people of the United States from the country of Mexico. They know what's in that water. They let it come. It's like dropping dirty bombs on a city all the time. San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, Region Nine.

David Gibson said there was uranium in the water at 1.0. A couple of years ago, I secured a Geiger counter. I spend my own money. I don't ask anybody for anything. Governor Newsom committed $50 million and pulled it off the table. He's not our friend. We have been treated like the redheaded stepchild and ignored. Okay? We do not ask Biden or Newsom for anything. We are courting environmental attorneys to sue everybody that has failed to protect us.

Everybody that has sworn an oath to the Constitution to protect the citizens of the United States of America that has taken us in their care and failed is subject to be sued because all these lawsuits that have already happened have failed. And what? Have the residents gotten more poisoned? We are getting sick. Dr. Dixon has proven a direct correlation between sewage spikes and illnesses with the residents. We're beyond our wits end. We're not going to take any more. We are going proactive, not reactive.

Thank you for your participation. Next, I have Cindy D. Cindy, please come forward. Welcome.

I don't have much to say except thank you. Thank you so very much for taking this emergency seriously. This emergency has other solutions not mentioned today. One I can see just as a layperson is, how is a pipe three and a half miles out going to sustain double capacity? So many things need to change, and the system is not working the way it should be working. Now, in all reality, we're literally cleaning up someone else's. Please don't stop here. Please help us.

Thank you, Cindy. Joanne Fields, followed by Pamela Gonzalez, followed by Andre Mendez.

Senator Padilla, thank you for again, bringing a hearing that opens up government, opens up transparency. And to have this dialogue, thank you for convening all the agencies that are instilled and paid. They're paid to protect us. But yet we have students and parents that aren't able to be here because they're in school or at work. I'm blessed to be here representing the Asian Pacific Islander initiative. I'm the government and public relations Director.

My daughter is a resident within a quarter of a mile of the affected area. If I had the opportunity to give the pictures that I took just this morning as I drove by, and you can smell the stench because it's accelerated because of the recent rain. You'll see the puddles of water that are surrounding the Tijuana River Park Community Garden, where vegetables are being grown and then eaten. We have the Southwest Little League. We have the AYSO soccer league. Four regions practice there.

One of the regions, their teams practice there four days a week. So while the studies are still being made on airborne and the effects and impacts of them, they're already there. And when you're at a game, we have parents, we have grandparents that are watching. They're scared about the mosquitoes that are being bred in the still water. Our residents, like my daughter, are buying filters, so they're spending more money just to live in their own home.

So please, our elected officials, please continue to use your influence and tell us, as a community, how do we work better to make sure that all of our communities in the region are protected. Thank you.

Thank you. Pamela Gonzalez, followed by Andre Mendez, followed by Cyrus Christos. Welcome, Pamela.

I'm Pamela Gonzalez, and I want to thank you for being able to have this opportunity. I live right in the middle of it, right off where the bridge is off of Hollister and Atherton, and I've lived in Imperial Beach all my life. I was born and raised, and we've had this problem that many years, but it just keeps getting worse. And at this point, I live with 11 humidifiers in my house 24 hours a day. I'm tired all the time.

Half the time I can't get my head off the pillow. I'm so tired from I don't know if I'm being sick from that or what, but my animals have I've had three animals die with the air. I'm sure it's that too, but I just want to say, when do we get relief? You guys talked about all of the money we're going to get or whatever, but when do we get immediate relief? Today. I want to be able to have air. I want to breathe fresh air.

I haven't been able to do that for the last two years. Sandy talked about when the problem arises, and sometimes they have to spray or sanitize it one time, and then they sometimes have to go back and do it again. Why can't they do that for us now? Why can't we breathe? Just like, give us a month, man. That'd be awesome. We do need to get everything done like we're heading towards, but right now, today, I want to breathe.

I can't even bring company to my house. My family won't even come and visit me because it stinks over, you know? Just please give us relief. That's all I want. We all want. Thank you.

Thank you, Pamela. Andre Mendez, followed by Cyrus. Is Andre in the house? All right, welcome.

Thank you. I live with Pamela, and she's my fiance. I've lived in Nester for about eight years and had to experience, especially over the past few years, the daily smell, sometimes 24 hours a day. And I'm a native San Diego and came back here in 2010 to spend time with my family. And like I said, I moved to Nester about eight years ago.

I just want to reiterate what Pamela said, that it's affected our quality of life, that we're embarrassed to even have our loved ones come down and visit us during the holidays. And this is important to us. Not anytime, but especially. We always seem like we have to make the venture up north, and we're just embarrassed. And to reiterate, we are lover of animals, and I find it more than a coincidence.

In the last year and a half, we've had three animals pass away due to respiratory problems. And we have a little Chihuahua right now that's probably in their last months of their life. And we're just asking for a better quality of life for everybody. And it's as important because we love living here. It's one of the reasons why I came back to California that we're just asking for help. I'm glad to see that they're getting things on the agenda now to move forward with.

I just I don't want to say it's too little, too late, but it's too bad it didn't happen sooner, and I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your participation. Cyrus Christos, please come on up. Followed by Steve Casanetta. If Director Casanetta is still here, I don't know if he left, but welcome.

Hi. My name is Cyrus Christos. I'm 76 years old, I live in Imperial Beach. I moved there in 1988 from LA. I have a degree in economics and I have a second degree in law and jurisprudence. Most of my work is as a referee for the California imperial court system. I have run across a lot of environmental issues. A lot of my clients clean dirty land. I acquire it from Standard Oil, their gas stations, and we clean it and throw it off.

So chemical pollution has been a big problem. My concern is not so much about the stink that people keep talking about. I mean, there's stink in your own house, in the bathroom that we can live with. It's not about that. It's about big cakes. Big white cakes that look like snow on the sand down by the mouth. It's called around there. And some of it up at the Boca over there. That stuff stays around for three weeks, four weeks. I got a sample of it.

I met a scientist down there from the Jonas Salk Institute. I gave him soil samples and ground cover samples. When that dries, it takes about a month. It's a chemical, a man made chemical, so it does not dissolve. So it sits on top of the sand. When it does, the wind blows it. The minimal distance that it blows is 5 miles. And with a strong wind, like an ocean wind, it'll go 1015, 20 miles.

Now, those heavy metals will kill you if you breathe them into your lungs. The typical cause is lung cancer. Starts out with Emphysema, then lung cancer. There's no cure for lung cancer. So that's what my concern about, is I can avoid the stink. I can close the windows, I can drive away. But I got to breathe the air. I know Mexico is a large economic trading partner. I understand your point there, but they're not responsible. What I've learned in all those years of working in law and real estate...

Sir. I appreciate your testimony, but your time has expired. Thank you very much. Has Director Castaneda left us? I think he has. Andrew Harvey from Chair Nora Vargas's office. Welcome. Thanks for your patience as well.

Senator Padilla, Senator Durazo. My name is Andrew Harvey. I'd like to read a letter on behalf of Chairwoman Nora Vargas of the County of San Diego.

Dear Senator Padilla, thank you for the invitation to participate in this important event. I want to underscore that you have been a true partner of shared commitment to tackle cross border pollution in the Tijuana River Valley. As you already know, the Tijuana River Valley sewage crisis has remained one of the most pressing environmental issues in our region, with sewage flows degrading water and air quality along our binational coastal communities.

Residents in the community of Nestor are under the daily stench of sewage, while in Imperial beach beaches have been closed for over 600 days. As a response, the County Board of Supervisors, under my leadership, took a series of decisive actions. This fiscal year, we allocated 750,000 to support the annual maintenance of the TGRV. Additionally, we successfully secured a $4,250,000 grant from the California State Water Resources Control Board.

This grant has been instrumental removing trash and sediment from smugglers, gulch and pilot channel areas that not have been dredged since 2018. I also led the effort to declare the Tuana River Valley pollution a public health crisis and most recently, a local emergency due to the continued challenge of aging infrastructure and transboundary flows. While I'm grateful for the support we have received, it is imperative to acknowledge that these measures are insufficient to fully address this problem. We need federal support to effectively resolve this crisis.

I want to thank you again for being a partner in our quest for clean air and clean water. And I look forward to our continued support and it is what our communities deserve. Sincerely, Nora E. Vargas, Chairwoman, San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Thank you so much, Senator.

Thank you, Andrew. And please again thank the Chair for her leadership, Martin. And forgive me, I'm going to it's hard to read, but Vrauskas. Martin, forgive me, but welcome. All right, welcome.

Well, it's the first time I got to meet you there, Senator Padilla, and I'm impressed. I like the way you handled yourself and how instead of just looking at one solution, you got A-B-C and D lined up in case the primary one doesn't work. One thing I just want to mention I'm not here to cause problems or anything. I'm here to get the solution, and that's all I care about. Like you said earlier, politics aside and everything.

And one of the things that you're going to come up against is that you're going to need approval from the President to the EPA for the $300 million to be given to Imperial Beach area. That's what didn't happen back in 14 March 2022. That was drafted by Ms. Vargas and sent to Congress. It passed Congress. But when it went to the Senate, it wasn't approved.

So that's something that I don't know if you got done already or it's coming up, but Till, the President acknowledges with the EPA has it in writing that he can give the money to IB, then we're ready. We've been ready. You've got the right people involved. And I just want to see the end of this because it's been drawing on too long. But I look forward to working with you. And I think everybody that's been here today has been doing a very good job. Let's just get this ball rolling and get the problem taken care of once and for all. Thank you.

Thank you for your participation. Delphina Gonzalez. Welcome.

Hello. My name is Delfina Gonzalez, and I am here representing my City of Chula Vista. And the biggest concern is that we need to solve right away. That really is what you've been hearing. Obviously. The other day I went to hear Paloma speaking at a class. No, actually, it was in a condominiums in San Diego. And she's like, why don't you guys go outside and go enjoy the view? Because we were so close to the border. You could see the border from Tijuana, she said.

But also, there's something special that you guys need to do. Go outside and smell the beautiful night air. And I can tell you I did not realize until I was in that location in San Diego that I could smell the sewage coming from the border. That is where you really understand that it's not just infecting Imperial Beach. It is affecting our whole county.

And this is why we need to be able to advocate for our families that are living in those condominiums that are smelling this, because they are literally on a high slope and are able to visually see down below. The for this reason I'm asking that we'd be able to find solutions. There's over 300 million cars that pass in our most busiest border every year. I said 300 million per year. Is there a possibility that we could do something? Because those cars are Hispanic and American.

Can we say we're charging a dollar to help it fix our sewage? I don't know. But this is just a suggestion that we could possibly do in the term to be able to fix and have this money, because it's both borders and both borders are being affected. Thank you guys so much.

Thank you. Appreciate It. All right. That will conclude those who have signed up to address the Select Committee under Public Comment and we. Again, very much appreciate your participation and your patience. I want to extend a special thanks to my distinguished colleague from Los Angeles, Senator Maria Lena Durazo. Senator Durazo is an incredible Member of our caucus and a leader in the Senate. And we're honored that you're participating in the select and taking the time.

Certainly we know traffic between here and Los Angeles, it isn't an easy thing, no problems at all. So we thank also Assemblymember Alvarez, who had a briefing to attend, so he had to leave us. But we want to thank him and his staff. And most importantly of all, again, I want to thank everyone from the public participating. But a special thanks to my amazing staff and most especially to my ledge Director, Mr.

Alexis Castro, over here to my right, put this together and just did an incredible amount of work. And Tommy Lawton at the other end over there is handling all of our AB. So to all of you, thank you. You're amazing. Thank you for your attendance and your interest. We will continue on this conversation. And now the Senate Select Committee will, ah, stand adjourned.