For nearly three years, children growing up along one of San Diego County’s most storied stretches of coastline have had to leave home just to swim in the ocean.

At YMCA Camp Surf in Imperial Beach last week, a group of middle schoolers spent their morning skateboarding, scaling a climbing wall and shooting arrows at a hay-bale target. Then, at noon, they piled onto a bus for a 40-minute ride north to Mission Beach — not because the camp lacks its own stretch of sand, but because the water just outside its doors is too contaminated to enter.

Camp Surf has welcomed generations of South County kids since 1969, teaching them to surf, boogie board and love the ocean. With its palm-thatched cottages and beachfront amphitheater, it embodies the quintessential Southern California summer. But persistent sewage pollution flowing north from Tijuana has forced the camp to rework decades of tradition, bussing campers to cleaner beaches simply to let them do what the camp was built for.

“Instead of being able to go into the ocean right there at Camp Surf, now we have to run buses 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 been hurt by that.”

Cross-border sewage contamination has plagued Imperial Beach, Coronado and other South County communities for decades, but the problem has intensified sharply in recent years. As Tijuana’s population has grown and wastewater infrastructure on both sides of the border has failed to keep pace, hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage have flowed into the Pacific. The result has been chronic illness among swimmers and surfers and near-constant beach closures for the past three years.

Residents describe headaches, asthma flare-ups and skin rashes after exposure to the water or to airborne pollutants drifting off the Tijuana River. Local schools have adopted so-called “rainy day schedules” when pollution spikes. In a community that is largely working-class and majority Latino, many residents say their environmental burden has gone largely unnoticed by the rest of the region.

A camp reshaped by contamination

At the entrance to Camp Surf sits an outdoor amphitheater where campers gather each night for songs and skits. Behind it, sage- and teal-colored cottages topped with fishnet and thatch line a path toward a dining hall whose windows look out onto an empty beach.

That beach used to be full, said program director Payton Schoonmaker. Campers surfed, built sandcastles and boogie-boarded along the shore, while weekend visitors — Girl Scout troops, church groups, families — set up camp along the sand.

“Before this, you would have seen pretty much a tent city, with 300 people camping on the beach,” Schoonmaker said. “But now, a lot of our business has gone away.”

This summer, the camp expects roughly 700 overnight campers, down from 1,200 in years past, along with about 400 day campers. Cellphones are checked at the gate, leaving kids to spend their days climbing towers, riding skate ramps, and — when conditions allow — surfing.

Since 2023, the waters fronting Camp Surf have been closed for most of the summer season. When possible, campers travel to nearby Coronado, though that city has increasingly faced its own water-quality closures, pushing trips even farther from home. Last week, that meant a bus ride to Mission Beach, where campers ate sack lunches on the lawn before paddling out together.

“We’ve made it work,” Cosson said. “We still have lots and lots of kids out there, it’s just a challenge for us.”

Junior lifeguards look elsewhere, too

The ripple effects extend well beyond summer camp. Imperial Beach’s junior lifeguard program — long a rite of passage for local kids and a pipeline into professional lifeguarding — has also had to improvise.

“I don’t think we’ve had one day of the beach being open,” said Jason Lindquist, head lifeguard for Imperial Beach. “We go remote. We bus everybody out of here. We can’t use the beach for anything. It’s been a challenge.”

The program initially shuttled kids to nearby Silver Strand Beach, but frequent closures there forced lifeguards to expand their reach across the county, coordinating with lifeguard agencies in nearly every other coastal city in San Diego County.

“All the other lifeguard agencies said you’re welcome to come here any time,” Lindquist said. “We’ve been all over the county. Our junior lifeguards probably get the most well-rounded view of the coastline.”

Demand for the program still outpaces capacity, Lindquist said, limited by bus logistics and staffing. Imperial Beach Mayor Mitch McKay called the program essential to the city’s identity.

“Imperial Beach’s identity has always been rooted in our coastline, and our Imperial Beach Junior Lifeguard program plays a vital role in preparing local youth to become capable ocean life-savers, good citizens and community leaders,” McKay said in a statement. “Many current and past city lifeguards actually graduated from our Junior Lifeguard ranks and have become extremely capable full-time, loyal city employees.”

A community cut off from its coastline

Imperial Beach is home to roughly 25,000 residents, 53% of whom are Latino, with a median household income of about $86,000 — roughly $20,000 below the county average and tens of thousands less than neighboring coastal communities. It remains one of the few beach towns in the region where working-class families can afford to live near the water. Increasingly, though, they can’t use it.

“I’m always wondering what message that sends to youth and families, to have the nearest beach closed and the air is hard to breathe,” said Tiffany Curry, public policy coordinator for the San Diego-based youth organization Outdoor Outreach, which offers surfing and outdoor programs for South County kids — just not near their own homes. The group now buses participants as far as Oceanside, roughly 50 miles north.

“Whenever we serve youth impacted by pollution, we have to take them out of their communities,” Curry said.

Sergio Gonzalez, 16, a student in the marine biology program at Mar Vista High School, has watched the contamination firsthand during class visits to test water quality along Imperial Beach’s shoreline.

“When I walk on the beach, I see dead animals and birds,” Gonzalez said. “It really concerns me. I wish I could do something about it.”

San Diego County monitors beach water quality daily and, since 2022, has used DNA-based testing that delivers results within hours rather than days. Warnings and closures are issued when bacteria levels or other contaminants exceed state health standards. Since 2023, much of Imperial Beach’s shoreline has remained closed or under advisory almost continuously.

Some relief may be on the horizon. The United States and Mexico have committed a combined $800 million toward fixing failing treatment infrastructure, and both nations upgraded key facilities last year. Local leaders are also seeking $25 million to address the so-called Saturn Boulevard Hot Spot, a major source of airborne pollution near the border. This year, the city plans to build a splash pad near its pier to give residents an alternative way to cool off, McKay said.

For many young residents, though, those fixes feel distant. Taylor Case, 18, a recent Mar Vista High graduate preparing to leave for college, grew up hearing stories from their mother and other longtime residents about bonfires and gatherings along the shore — memories Case never got to make.

“They talk about how much fun they had with their friends and families, and how tight-knit the community was, and I just don’t see that now,” said Case, who hasn’t swum in the ocean near home since 2017. “And I know for sure that is because of the pollution, because we don’t have that beach anymore.”

Original source: CalMatters

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