When the Tide Smells Wrong
The first time I tried to surf Imperial Beach with friends, the lifeguard walked over, pointed at the yellow sign, and said, “Closed,contamination.” The tide looked fine, yet the air didn’t. It carried a strong, sour, metallic smell that locals recognize before the wind even changes. We tossed our boards back in the car and drove north to Pacific Beach. The ocean shouldn’t require a detour.
Imperial Beach is situated at the end of a watershed that originates in the mountains of Baja California and extends into the U.S. as the Tijuana River. Storms push untreated sewage wastewater and runoff downstream, past the border fence, into wetlands, and eventually out into the Pacific Ocean. You don’t need a PhD to read the signs, “Contaminated water. Keep out.” Families skip beach days. Small businesses lose weekend crowds. Kids trade sandcastles for iPads. The ocean is still right there, yet access is what disappears.
Federal and binational plans promise repairs, new pipes, and upgraded treatment. I want the engineering to win. But I’ve learned on the ground, through many conversations with lifeguards, pop-up shop workers, and parents at the estuary, that timelines slip while tides don’t. When the rain comes, postings go up. Beach closures feel like weather now.
As a UC San Diego student involved in environmental health and justice work, I’ve spent time in the South Bay talking with residents who can tell you the calendar by the smell. They describe coughs returning after storms and headaches when the breeze shifts onshore. I had joined weekend walks along the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve trails to see how the wetland tries to buffer the mess we send it. Shorebirds needle the mudflats like nothing’s wrong. But you look closer and see foam, plastic, and the border wall cutting the horizon. The estuary is doing its quiet, essential job, and we’re asking it to clean up for two countries.
I don’t say this as an outsider. The closures affect my friends and the communities I’m part of. Our Surf Club group chats light up with plan B spots (often more expensive, farther away, and crowded). That adds up (e.g., gas, time, and the quiet frustration of knowing a public commons is on pause). The ocean is our running trail, our park, our place to breathe. You shouldn’t need the right ZIP code to access it.
The science here is quite straightforward; when wastewater exceeds capacity, the river carries it to the sea. Wetlands help, but they aren’t magic. What does help is a coalition that spans agencies and neighborhoods. Staff at the estuarine reserve track conditions and educate visitors. Groups like WILDCOAST work on restoration and policy Local clinics and pediatricians flag health concerns quickly, connecting symptoms with the storm calendar. And beach communities, on both sides of the border, keep showing up to demand fixes that last longer than a press conference.
The story I want to tell isn’t just about failure; it’s about standards. We already know what clean water success looks like: beaches where closures are the rare exception, not the norm; pipes and pumps that keep working when the power doesn’t; clear public dashboards so residents can see water-quality data without bringing out the Webster dictionary; and infrastructure sized for the actual population, not updated from the 2000s. We also know what it takes to get there: funding that arrives on time, cross-border coordination that treats a river like a river, and maintenance budgets that outlast election cycles.
On the best days, the fix is visible. You’ll see volunteers in waders taking samples after a storm, researchers logging sewage counts, and city staff installing new booms or sensors. Citizen science isn’t a substitute for pipes, but it does something engineering can’t: it builds ownership and community. When a high schooler can point to a map and say, “This is where we measured a spike and saw waste,” that’s community surveillance in the best sense, neighbors documenting what matters because it affects their lungs, their weekends, and their paychecks.
I’m often asked what keeps me hopeful. Honestly, it’s the ordinary commitment of the people most affected. The parent who checks the daily updates and organizes a carpool to a safer beach. The taquería near the pier that adjusts hours to capture what’s left of a good weather crowd. The fishermen who know which drainages to avoid and share that knowledge, no drama, just care.
If you’re reading this from far away, here’s the bigger picture: the Tijuana River isn’t unique problem. Around the world, border watersheds expose a simple truth: pollution follows gravity, not policy. The lesson is practical. Invest where water begins and where people live. Publish the data in plain language. Fix the basics first. The ocean doesn’t need speeches; it needs a working infrastructure.
We drove back to Imperial Beach a few weeks after that first closure. Different smell, same sign. I watched a little kid ask his mom why nobody was swimming. She pointed to the black words and said, “Not today.” The tide rolled in, gorgeous and wrong. I don’t want “not today” to be the normal answer to a basic public good.
How can we make “today” safer in the future? It would mean surf practice at IB without a backup chat thread. It would mean the estuary filtering a river that arrives mostly clean, not carrying a structural failure. It would mean a simple right restored: to touch the ocean without worrying what it will do to you. That shouldn’t be a luxury. It should be the baseline.
Nam Thanh Nguyen – University of California, San Diego
Nam Thanh Nguyen (he/him) is a senior at the University of California, San Diego, and a native in the region, where he is currently pursuing a B.S. degree in Human Biology and intends to earn an M.D./Ph.D. focusing on environmental health. Nam is a council member on the California Environmental Justice Advisory Council, working with both the Department of Toxic Substances Control and Board of Environmental Safety. He is also a United Nations Local Pathways Fellow and Yale Path Scholar, where he focuses his efforts on issues relating to the Tijuana Sewage Valley.
