Sewage contamination flowing across the border from Tijuana has closed beaches near Imperial Beach for years, forcing a beloved children’s camp — and a generation of young people — to look elsewhere for the ocean experience that has long defined life in this coastal Southern California community.
At YMCA Camp Surf in Imperial Beach last week, middle schoolers spent their morning skateboarding, scaling a climbing tower and shooting arrows at a target range. Then, at midday, they boarded a bus for a 40-minute drive up the coast to Mission Beach, where they finally got to do the thing the camp is named for: surf.
Founded in 1969, Camp Surf has introduced generations of South County kids to water sports and outdoor recreation. Tucked right against the shoreline, with its surf-shack décor of driftwood and fishing nets, the camp has long embodied classic Southern California beach culture.
But in recent years, access to the ocean itself has been cut off by persistent sewage pollution pouring in from Tijuana, forcing the camp to get creative just to give kids a chance to catch a wave.
“Instead of being able to access the ocean right from Camp Surf, we now have to bus kids to other beaches,” said Jamie Cosson, executive director of overnight camps for the YMCA of San Diego County. “And people’s relationship with the camp has really been affected by that.”
Cross-border sewage contamination has plagued Imperial Beach, Coronado and other parts of South County for decades, and the crisis has intensified in recent years. As Tijuana’s population has grown and wastewater treatment plants on both sides of the border have failed, hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated sewage have poured into the ocean. The pollution has sickened swimmers and surfers and triggered near-constant beach closures over the past three years.
Residents of Imperial Beach describe waking up with headaches, asthma flare-ups and skin rashes after exposure to the water or to airborne pollutants from the Tijuana River. Local schools have shifted to alternative schedules when pollution spikes. Many residents of this working-class, majority-Latino community say they struggle to breathe, sleep and swim — and feel their environmental concerns have gone largely ignored.
The contamination has also chipped away at longtime traditions and made it harder for kids to simply play outside, leaving a generation of beach-town residents wary of the water.
“Without that access to a free, fun activity, the community isn’t as connected as it was when I was a kid,” said Taylor Case, 18, a recent graduate of Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach.
**When the coast is off-limits for surfing**
At the entrance to Camp Surf sits an amphitheater where campers and staff gather for songfests, skits and bonfires. Behind it, cabins painted in sage green, turquoise and beige feature palm-thatched roofs and fishing nets draped along the walls. In the dining hall, a wood-beamed room lined with windows looks out over an empty stretch of sand.
The shoreline used to be filled with campers surfing, bodyboarding and building sandcastles, said Payton Schoonmaker, the camp’s program director. On weekends, church groups, Girl Scout troops and families would often pitch tents there.
“It used to basically look like a tent city, with like 300 people camping on the beach,” she said. “But now a lot of that business has gone away.”
Last week, campers instead took a short walk along the shore with their counselor, who told them: “We’re going to take a stroll on the beach and pick up a little trash, too.”
This summer, the camp expects around 700 overnight campers, from third through 12th grade — down from 1,200 last year, according to Cosson. Another 400 or so day campers, from first through seventh grade, will also attend.
With a full day of outdoor programming, the camp offers a break from screens and social media. Electronic devices aren’t allowed; kids check their phones at the gate.
“I think camps hold an incredibly important place in society today, letting kids unplug from technology, connect with nature and build real relationships away from devices,” Cosson said.
Throughout the day, campers play soccer, work on crafts, tackle a 35-foot climbing tower, roll through the skate park and line up to take aim at the archery range.
Last week, as two girls debated whether an arrow had landed in the bullseye or the surrounding yellow ring, a boy nearby couldn’t resist chiming in: “Girls, that was a bad shot!”
“On their first round, they might not even hit the target,” Schoonmaker said. “By the last round, they’re hitting the bullseye with all five arrows, so in just an hour, you can see that progress.”
That boost in confidence and independence is really the heart of the camp experience, she said. “It’s about making friends, trying new things and feeling like you belong to a group.”
That includes surfing — even if it now takes a road trip to get there. Since 2023, the camp’s own beaches have been closed for most of the summer, forcing campers to travel elsewhere to surf and swim.
When conditions allow, they head to nearby Coronado, about 15 minutes north by bus. Lately, though, that city has also faced closures, pushing campers to travel even farther up the coast.
Last week, at midday, they boarded a bus, ate turkey sandwiches on the lawn at South Mission Beach, then paddled out en masse. Some kids tumbled off their boards the moment they tried to stand, while others quickly got the hang of it — one boy even popped a 180-degree spin while riding a wave toward shore.
“We’ve made it work,” Cosson said. “We still have a ton of kids out there — it’s just been a challenge for us.”
**Training young lifeguards**
The ripple effects of the beach closures extend well beyond the camp, creating gaps in outdoor education, physical activity, recreation and water safety training for kids across South County.
“We have children growing up in a community where they can’t get in the water, and that’s really tragic, because that’s where they learn about water safety and swimming,” Cosson said.
Like Camp Surf, Imperial Beach’s Junior Lifeguard program has had to make do with limited resources since the pandemic.
The program was suspended during COVID-19 shutdowns and then reopened facing a different kind of public health threat: sewage pollution.
“I don’t think we’ve had a single day with the beach open,” said Jason Lindquist, Imperial Beach’s lifeguard chief. “We go somewhere else. We bus everybody around. We can’t use the beach for anything. It’s been a real challenge.”
The program adapted by renting a school bus to shuttle young lifeguards up and down the coast. At first, they took kids to nearby Silver Strand Beach, just a few minutes north. But when that beach also began facing frequent water-quality closures, they had to broaden their search.
Imperial Beach’s junior lifeguards now follow a three-week schedule that includes stops at nearly every other coastal city in San Diego County, coordinated with neighboring lifeguard agencies.
“Every other lifeguard agency told us we could come whenever we wanted,” Lindquist said. “We’ve been all over the county. Our junior lifeguards probably have the most complete view of the coastline of anybody.”
Some kids get discouraged by the long bus rides, he said, but many participants and their parents actually enjoy the variety. Demand for the program routinely outpaces capacity, and transportation and staffing limits prevent the city from enrolling as many junior lifeguards as it would like.
That makes it harder to prepare Imperial Beach’s youth to enjoy the ocean safely — and to train the next generation of professional lifeguards.
“Imperial Beach’s identity has always been rooted in our coastline, and our Junior Lifeguard program plays a critical role in preparing local youth to become skilled ocean lifeguards, good citizens and community leaders,” Imperial Beach Mayor Mitch McKay said in a statement to CalMatters. “The importance of the program is undeniable — many current and former city lifeguards graduated from our Junior Lifeguard program and have gone on to become loyal, highly trained, full-time city employees.”
**”We don’t have that beach anymore”**
Families and community leaders in Imperial Beach have spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to live in a place where so much of the outdoor space is compromised by pollution.
In this city of roughly 25,000 residents, 53% are Latino, and the median household income is about $86,000 — roughly $20,000 below the San Diego County average and at least $50,000 below neighboring coastal cities. It’s one of the few places left in the region where working-class families can afford to live near the beach. But they can’t actually enjoy it.
“I always wonder what kind of message it sends to young people and families when the closest beach is closed and it’s hard to breathe,” said Tiffany Curry, public policy coordinator for Outdoor Outreach, a San Diego nonprofit.
The organization runs surf lessons and outdoor education programs for kids across South County — but not in Imperial Beach itself. Like Camp Surf, they bus kids to other beaches, sometimes as far north as Oceanside, roughly 50 miles away.
“Whenever we’re serving young people affected by the pollution, we have to take them out of their own communities,” Curry said.
San Diego County tests water quality at its beaches daily and, in 2022, began using DNA-based testing that delivers results within hours rather than days. The county issues warnings or advisories when bacteria or other contaminant levels exceed state standards, and imposes mandatory closures when a known sewage or chemical spill contaminates the water. Since 2023, much of Imperial Beach’s coastline has remained closed or under advisory almost continuously due to poor water quality.
Some improvements are in the works. The United States and Mexico have committed a combined $800 million to repair failing wastewater treatment plants, and both countries upgraded facilities last year. Local officials are also seeking $25 million to address a known pollution hotspot near Saturn Boulevard, believed to be a major source of airborne contamination. This year, Imperial Beach plans to build a water play area near its pier to give residents a way to enjoy the water close to shore, according to McKay.
For some young people in the community, those fixes still feel far off. Taylor Case has heard her mother and other Imperial Beach neighbors describe summer nights spent around beach bonfires, and had hoped to experience that herself before heading off to college this fall.
“They talk about how much fun they had with their friends and family, and how close-knit the community was, and I just don’t see that anymore,” said Case, who hasn’t gone into the ocean near her home since 2017. “And I know for a fact it’s because of the pollution, because we don’t have that beach anymore.”
Original source: CalMatters
