Polluted Waters, Missed Memories: Imperial Beach’s Crisis Strikes a Chord

The first time I went to Imperial Beach, California, I was struck by the community’s kindness. I went to the pier first, not knowing where to find people to talk to, only knowing that the pier was an iconic fixture of the town. 

The air was salty and the beach was sparse for a Saturday afternoon. I stood there with my list of questions and a camera and looked around at the people around me. There was a grandmother playing with her granddaughter at a small playground. As I nervously approached her, she waved me over with warm brown eyes and we got to talking about her neighborhood. 

Her name was Angela and she was living walking distance from the beach with her daughter and granddaughter. She opened up to me about her worries for her daughter’s future growing up in a polluted town. She told me about sandcastle competitions on Imperial Beach, the community marveling at the tall twirling sand castles and shapes carved out in the sand. Now, of course, nobody wants to touch the sand, she said.

When I got home, I realized I never asked for her last name. While she wouldn’t be quoted in the story, she inspired me to reach out to people in the community, and was the first person who showed me how kind the people of Imperial Beach are. 

Throughout the many interviews and trips to Imperial Beach, I heard a similar pattern: a shared feeling of loss. People gushed about days lying on the sand, how beautiful Imperial Beach was, all the community events and fishing trips and surfing that characterized the community. And now that these things were being stripped away, people grieved for it.

A classmate of mine from Imperial Beach, David, told me about watching the town he grew up in slowly buckle under the weight of nonstop pollution. He said he always looked forward to taking his PE elective in high school, a surfing class. It was a core memory for other classmates to wake up early and ride the waves with their friends. But within the course of two semesters, he said, the surfing teacher had gotten sick “about 20 times.”

He couldn’t take this class in high school. His younger siblings didn’t get the chance either. Kids are probably the group hit the hardest in Imperial Beach from all that they lose. Many in the community are questioning whether outdoor activities are safe with the air pollution, even if they’re not beside the water.

At first, the story was about the loss of this beach, a community space to swim and gather. But as I spoke to more people, and felt how genuine they were and ready to talk to me and direct me to where to go next, it was almost overwhelming how far the impacts of the polluted water in Imperial Beach reached.

It touched the schools, as David said. The fishermen along the pier, the parents and grandparents. The fish in the estuary, the landowners, baseball players, and scientists. 

Since everyone was affected, they wanted to speak about it. ReShae Cuevas surprised me with her vulnerability the first time we met, sharing the story of her and her son, sick to the point of not being able to call someone due to sickness from pollution. She invited me to her son’s baseball game, where she would be volunteering.

When I walked up to the game, I felt the bond in this community: dads putting their arms around each other’s shoulders, people waving and cheering together, asking about families and sons and daughters. People greeted me as if they knew me. “Come on in and serve some food with me!” ReShae said as I walked to the snack stand to talk to her.

It was a welcome break from all the interviews and emails to just be in this snack shack with her and her neighbors, serving Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper, and pouring cheese on nachos. I felt immersed in her routine for a moment and afterward we talked more about life in Imperial Beach. 

It struck me as a town that I could’ve grown up in, a place that I could’ve swam in, gone to high school in, gone to sports games in. Imperial Beach is a normal coastal town that should get to be normal. Instead, the smell of sewage permeates everything.

A local activist, Leon Benham, agreed to take me to see the Tijuana River from Imperial Beach. I had heard story after story about the stench that floats over the town at night. How it wakes people up, creates headaches, and even makes people throw up.

But when we stepped out of the car to go to a part of the river, the smell was like a smack in the face. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It was the smell of ammonia, rotting, excrement sitting in the sun. After a few minutes, I had a headache. To think that this is the exact smell that spreads to people’s homes at night was horrifying.

Something else became clear: People are beyond frustrated, beyond tired. They want a solution, and have spoken up more than enough, but this issue needs help on a wider scale.