CDC to launch door-to-door health survey in South County communities affected by sewage crisis – San Diego Union-Tribune

Like many people in South County, Analy Hayes of Imperial Beach said the foul odors from raw sewage flowing into the Tijuana River Valley have affected her family, including her three young children.

“The smell is so powerful that it wakes us up at night,” he said Wednesday. “My older son would have a cough, my other son would have breathing problems and a runny nose. We need that fixed now.”

Hayes said she’s ready to share that information with the nation’s top public health agency should they come knocking on her door in the coming days.

On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will launch a face-to-face survey of 210 randomly selected households near where sewage and other pollutants are dumped into the Tijuana River Valley from Mexico. More than 80 people from the CDC, San Diego County and local universities will visit the homes between 2 and 7 pm Thursday through Saturday. Each survey, which is expected to take about 15 minutes, will be voluntary and anonymous.

While it is not known what specific questions will be asked, officials said the survey, formally known as the Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER), will focus on changes in the health, mental health and daily activities that people may have experienced as a result. from being exposed to polluted air and water.

Nearly 7,000 South County households were notified two weeks ago of the CDC visit, the first significant presence by a federal public health agency responding to growing public calls for greater focus on the problems of health related to waste water linked to transboundary pollution.

Residents have reported experiencing symptoms such as chronic coughing, watery eyes, headaches, nausea and diarrhea after being regularly exposed to strong odors emanating from the river or after heavy rains that bring more polluted runoff to the border between the USA and Mexico.

Local public health officials have repeatedly said they have not seen an increase in reportable diseases in South County. That’s partly because the county only tracks certain diseases, leaving gaps that don’t show the full extent of the problem.

Information gathered from CASPER will help the government better assess these gaps and next steps “to bring more help to this community,” Ankita Kadakia, the county’s acting public health officer, said in a statement.

“It is important that selected households answer the CDC survey questions fully and honestly to better capture what is happening in the community at the height of this crisis,” he added.

CASPERs have been used many times in California and around the country to find out what people need, usually after disasters and environmental health issues. For example, one assessment produced public health statistics following a widespread methane leak in Aliso Canyon, Los Angeles County.

From October 2015 to February 2016, the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility released 109,000 metric tons of methane, which poses a health and safety risk to residents, according to CASPER. Residents had reported complaints of symptoms, including nausea, abdominal discomfort and headaches, associated with odors from the gas leak. Thousands of people were temporarily evacuated and businesses had to close. The assessment recommended testing inside residential homes and preparing specific ways to ventilate and clean homes, among other suggestions.

LA County officials tested indoor air and dust in some homes and pushed for a better environmental and safety review of the Aliso Canyon facility. In 2018, the county and other local and state agencies reached a nearly $120 million settlement with the gas company to fund a long-term health study, air monitoring, electric school buses and filtration systems of air in schools, among other efforts.

In South County, residents said they noticed noxious sewer gas odors improved after Mexican officials began diverting some flows from the Tijuana River recently, but the stench is still resurfacing. A spokesman for the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District said Wednesday that the agency is still receiving complaints about the odors, but that they have decreased in recent weeks. Wastewater infrastructure on both sides of the border is undergoing repairs and expansion after years of underinvestment, although completion will likely take years.

Reports of Tijuana sewage leaking across the border into the San Diego region date back to at least the 1930s. Although significant improvements were made during the 1990s, the city’s plumbing has not kept up the rate of population growth. Sewage contamination has led to repeated beach closures as far away as Coronado and the relocation of Navy Seal and lifeguard training. Calls continue from local, state and federal elected officials, and most recently from the California Coastal Commission, asking President Joe Biden to declare a state of emergency. Local leaders are also exploring petitioning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to investigate whether the Tijuana River Valley qualifies as a Superfund site.

County officials said the goal is to share at least some results from the CASPER data with the public by the end of the year.

San Diego State University’s School of Public Health is also conducting its own survey to better understand “how pollution in the Tijuana River and estuary affects the air, water and health of nearby communities.” . The survey, which was launched this month, is open for a year.

Originally Posted: October 16, 2024 at 7:39 p.m