A Los Angeles attorney sent a cease and desist letter to the county demanding it halt its planned reopening of the Tijuana River Valley Regional Park Campground amid concerns that park rangers and visitors would be exposed to sewage pollution.
In a Thursday letter to Jason Hemmens, San Diego County director of Parks and Recreation, attorney David W. M. Fujimoto said he represents SEIU Local 221, the union representing more than a dozen campground park rangers, and insists bargaining must be done before allowing workers and the public back to the site.
“The County’s decision directly involves Local 221’s members’ health and safety and is therefore a mandatory subject of bargaining,” Fujimoto wrote.
Donna Durckel, a county spokesperson, did not comment on the union’s demand to bargain ahead of the planned reopening on April 1. She said in an email that the county “worked closely with park employees throughout the process to reopen the park and ensure a safe environment.”
But Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre said Thursday that she heard from some park rangers who expressed concern over returning to the site and questioned whether they should wear masks to protect themselves from noxious odors caused by hydrogen sulfide emissions repeatedly detected in and around the river valley.
“I really empathize with them because I know how much they love their job, but if they’re having real, serious concerns about being put back into harm’s way, why are we doing this,” she said at a news conference she organized with the union to announce the cease and desist letter. Aguirre is running for District 1 county supervisor, which includes the communities affected by the cross-border sewage crisis, and was endorsed by the SEIU Local 221.
Park rangers were expected to speak at the event but reportedly backed out over fear of retaliation from the county, union officials said.
The 79-acre campground is on Monument Road near Saturn Boulevard in the Tijuana River Valley, an area notorious for flooding with wet and dry weather sewage flows that spill over from Mexico. Since a major rainstorm last January, the site has remained closed. The storm damaged a berm of the Smuggler’s Gulch, a vital stormwater channel in the river valley, which led to millions of gallons of untreated wastewater, trash and sediment to pool at the campground and surrounding private properties.
Historically, the county has been responsible for dredging Smuggler’s Gulch upstream of Monument Road and the city of San Diego for dredging downstream of Monument Road, where the berm broke.
The city repaired the berm last November.
And the county, according to a campground reopening FAQ, implemented a phased, “comprehensive” plan that includes sanitizing and repairing trails and amenities damaged by the flooding and removing overgrown vegetation and debris. The county also recommends that visitors not let pets drink standing water and look for signs of area closures “to minimize exposure to potentially contaminated areas.”
In the FAQ, the county said the campground is safe to visit.
Its decision was based on soil testing conducted in October and November “to determine if microbes deposited by flood waters that may pose a potential health risk to those recreating at the campground are present in the topsoil or cores,” a February report on the findings said.
The report found that most topsoil samples did not detect any pathogenic microbes and where they were present, “concentrations were generally below detection or low.” Parasites such as Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium, which can be found in the feces of infected humans or animals, were found. E. coli and salmonella were not detected.
Additionally, the report stated that sample collections took place months after the January flood and after a prolonged dry period, “which may account for the low abundance of pathogens and parasites detected.”
The union said the county should do more soil testing of the site and continuous monitoring of the air quality at the campground.
On Wednesday, during a special meeting of the Imperial Beach City Council, researchers from UC San Diego and San Diego State University studying how Tijuana sewage pollution impacts air quality and public health said their findings show that hydrogen sulfide is repeatedly found to exceed state thresholds.
The Tijuana River Valley campground, about a mile from the Tijuana River and east of the Pacific Ocean, where shorelines have long been closed due to sewage contamination, opened in 2021. Years before its opening, environmentalists raised concerns that its location would pose health risks to visitors because of continuous sewage spills.
The site offers 51 campsites for RVs and tents, connects to nearly two dozen miles of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding and is the county’s first to offer yurts.
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