Assembly Standing Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials

Started. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the ESTM Committee hearing for Tuesday, February 20. I'm going to ask that our secretary call the roll.

To establish core. [Roll Call] We have a quorum.

Thank you very much again. Good afternoon. Will the sergeants please call the remaining members for the committee? We will go through our housekeeping, but first and foremost, we'll welcome Assemblymer Gomez Reyes and Assemblymer Papan. He's here with us. Thank you. I'd like to also just welcome our CCST Science and Technology policy fellow, Dr. Brenda Cisneros Larios. Welcome.

As part of the addition to this committee and looking forward to having you part of our group here for the session, we have primary witnesses that will be allowed to use a total of four minutes as well as the opposition. All additional witnesses will be limited to stating their name, organization that they represent, and their position on the bill. Also want to note that we are accepting written testimony through the position letter portal on the committee website.

We have one item today and the author is here. So let's begin. AJR 12.

Thank you Mr. Chair and members of the committee appreciate the opportunity to come before you today with AJR 12. Assembly Joint Resolution 12. Myself, along with the entire San Diego legislative delegation, Members consisting of both chambers of both parties would like to present Assembly joint Resolution 12. In addition to declaring several disastrous findings, calls on the United States Congress and President Joseph Biden to pass comprehensive funding measures and declare a national emergency due to the impacts of cross border pollution in San Diego.

We will hear in a minute from our Cosa Commissioner, but also mayor of the City of Imperial Beach, Mayor Paloma Aguirre, which is the city, is located at the southernmost point of our state.

For decades, the communities along the San Diego and Tijuana border have been grappling with a crisis that really knows no borders, a relentless flow, untreated sewage, hazardous chemicals, solid waste and more into the Tijuana River, which is a binational watershed, spilling into our oceans, contaminating our beaches, endangering our ecosystems and the public health.

Now this pollution does not only destroy the natural beauty of our coastline, but possesses serious health risks to our citizens and inflicts economic harm on local businesses that depend on clean and accessible beaches. Some of the beach has been closed since December 8th, 2021. Since October 2018, the International Boundary and Water Commission has documented over 150,000,000,000 gallons of toxic effluent entering California and impacting the City of Imperial beach, the communities of San Isidro, Otay Mesa, Nestor and others.

In June of 2023, the County of San Diego issued an emergency declaration due to the public health, environment and economic impacts of this disaster. More recently, research done by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and San Diego State University confirms what has long been suspected and what we've been afraid of. The sewage and solid waste contamination is making its way into the air that we breathe in San Diego.

76% of the bacteria found in the air in Imperial beach can be traced back to cross border pollution, and local health clinics have reported surges of gastrointestinal disease during rain events. This is not normal and not something that residents of our state should be suffering from. It is the Federal Government's responsibility to maintain our cross border waterways, which include complying with the Clean Water Act. Yet for many years, for too many years, they have failed.

One glaring example is our failure to maintain the international treatment plant that's located on the border from the year 2011 to 2021, a 10 year period. The Federal Government only allocated a total of $4 million for the 10 years to maintain this treatment plant, a plant that treats the cross border sewage, which requires $4 million on an annual basis. So it received one 10th of what it needed over the course of 10 years.

That is why in 2019, our former state Attorney General, Javier Becerra, launched a lawsuit against the Federal Government for their failure to comply with the Clean Water Act. The lawsuit was successfully settled nearly two years ago and resulted in commitments to comply, along with $300 million from the Federal Government to fix the cross border pollution. The result of that funding has yet to be materialized simply because it is not enough to get the job done.

We know what needs to be done and we just need the funding. That is why I urge the committee's consideration of this resolution. In addition to that, we want to call your special attention to the issue in the resolution related to the New River, which has also suffered from cross border pollution. These are two of our most important waterways in the California Mexico border, and we need the Federal Government to really own up to its responsibility and take action.

So AJR 12 will send a unified message, direct message to United States Congress, President Biden to pass additional funding measures provide financial flexibility to the International Boundary Water Commission, the IBWC, so they can maintain their infrastructure and ultimately declare a national emergency, as this is to combat cross border sewage and pollution. This disaster that's been with us for too long, I'd like now to turn it over to Mayor Paloma Aguirre from the City of Imperial Beach.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak in support of this resolution. I also want to thank Assemblymember Garcia for his leadership regarding the New River. I remember meeting you down in Imperial Beach when you were advocating for a different bill, but I just want to share with you the perspective that I bring, especially of the 27,000 residents of the City of Imperial Beach. As the Assembly Member noted, we have been suffering this issue for decades, but it's never been worse.

It's been exacerbated because of lack of investment into infrastructure, infrastructure breaks that have happened, increased storm events, atmospheric rivers have brought an intense amount of rain in very short amount of time. January 22, we had 14.5 billion gallons of sewage flow through our communities, impacting not just the City of Imperial beach, but also the adjacent communities such as Nestor, San Isidro, South San Diego. San Diego County, and South County is home to 750,000 residents.

And as the Assemblymember noted, there are pollutants that are now being aerosolized and that can be carried well inland from the shoreline. It is extremely concerning. Last year, after Tropical Storm Hillary hit our area for the first time, we had an outbreak of Shigella and E. Coli, people becoming sick, at least 12 people who lived adjacent to the estuary, some of whom were even hospitalized. So the situation is dire.

I am proud that I have the bipartisan support of all 18 mayors in San Diego County calling for a state of emergency and for more support from our Federal Government. I was also very proud to have led a bipartisan delegation to DC in company with Mayor McCann from Chila Vista and Council Member John Duncan from the City of Coronado, where we reached out to members on both sides of the aisle, in both chambers, and we had very broad support.

However, the funding still needs to be approved. The $310,000,000 that President Biden requested still needs to be approved. In the meantime, we're seeing the effects of this pollution. Our local doctors at South Bay Urgent Care Clinic are reporting a 560% increase in gastrointestinal diseases. So the situation is unsustainable and it has tremendous impacts on our public health, but also our environmental health and economy as well. The City of Chila Vista is just in the process of completing a $4.5 billion investment at Gaylord and Imperial beaches.

And Coronado beaches are going to serve those tourists that come and visit our area, but they're only going to find that our beaches have been closed now for 804 consecutive days. So obviously it's also a coastal access issue. I am wearing also my coastal commissioner hat, and I'm extremely concerned about that. And the Coastal Commission has also prioritized this issue, having already sent letters of support for the request from President Biden and to Governor Newsom in a forthcoming letter to support the Assemblymember's resolution.

So again, thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I'm available for questions.

Thank you very much. I'll ask to see if there are any other witnesses that will be speaking in opposition, and then I'll open it up for comments. See no one. For this resolution, opposition. I'll ask for those who want to comment in favor or opposition, please state your name, organization you may be with, and your position.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members Kira Rosoff, on behalf of the City of Coronado, like Imperial Beach, we're heavily impacted by this and would really urge your support. Thank you.

Melissa Sparks-Kranz with the League of California Cities in support of AJR 12.

Sharon Gonzales on behalf of the City of Carlsbad, in support.

Thank you. I'm going to bring up the matter back to the dais. If there are any questions, any comments to my left, my right, entertain a motion on this item. We have a motion and a second. Okay, I'll just say, thank you, Assemblymember Alvarez, and thank you, mayor, for being here, bringing this issue forward. It's extremely important for us who represent the border region, but should be important to entire state in terms of what's happening in this area.

I want to just highlight that in 2015, the same committee chaired by Assemblymember, then Assemblymember Luis Alejo, took this committee on the road and had a hearing in San Diego, a hearing in Calexico, and as a result, came a number of different strategic actions and funds put forward to try to minimize and mitigate the problem that is taking place. But this requires far more mitigation dollars. It requires intervention by the Federal Government, who has full responsibility for cross border pollution issues.

So thank you for bringing this to our attention. Thank you for including the issue of the new river as well. That is important to us in our district. So with that, I'll ask secretary, please call the roll.

This is item one. AJR 12. Alvarez. The motion is be adopted to third reading. [Roll Call] You have five, so.

We'll keep the roll open for other members to add on. We'll stay here for about 10 minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you, mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Good to see you.

Thank you.

Good luck.

That's it.

Okay. We're going to open up the roll call for other members to add on.

Yes. This is AJR 12. Alvarez. The vote stands at 5-0. [Roll Call]. So that's unanimous 7-0. Thank you.

All right with that. Thank you. You the motion and the second carry. bill goes to third reading. And at this time we'll adjourn the committee.