The future of the Tijuana River Valley Community Garden, San Diego County’s largest community garden, is in limbo.
Scores of gardeners who lease plots from the Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego County (RCDGSDC), a special district that has managed the property since 2002, were notified in late September that they had 60 days to vacate the site.
The district’s reasoning: the ongoing Tijuana River sewage crisis.
“With the health and safety of gardeners, farmers, and staff as our top priority — and given the increased flooding and related challenges in recent years — the RCDGSDC has made the very difficult decision to conclude management of the Garden and return the site to the County,” the email to the gardeners read.
The district rents the land from the county and subleases more than 200 garden plots and 10 quarter-acre plots for farming businesses. Annually, gardeners rent the smaller plots for about $300, including water, and just under $2,000 without water for the larger plots.
In an emailed statement Thursday, county spokesperson Donna Durckel said that the county had “not yet determined next steps for this site.”
“Over the next few months, we will work with RCD and the community on transition options, including having RCD share information on available plots at nearby locations, such as the Sweetwater Community Garden,” she said.
Gardeners said they are scrambling to find alternatives, as the Sweetwater garden has fewer and smaller plots.
Bryan Rivera and his wife grow and sell botanical herbs and fruits from their quarter-acre plot in the garden. They began leasing about just over a year ago.
“You can walk through my garden, like, I smell chamomile. I smell lemon balm. I smell valerian root. I smell mugwort. I smell rue,” he said. “So many great things. This place doesn't just benefit us, the humans. It benefits all the bio flora.”
Since receiving the notice to terminate their tenancy, Rivera said, he and other gardeners have “sat together and none of us have found something. It's nearly impossible.”
For Ed Whited, a Navy veteran who has been growing vegetables and flowers in his leased, quarter-acre plot over the last eight years, the garden is more than just a place to make money.
It’s where he’s made memories with his grandchildren. On a recent Wednesday, while picking tomatoes and squash from his summer crop, he recalled one memory with his granddaughter, who is now in college.
“It was, you know, one of those rare, winter, rainy days,” he said. “It was beautiful. Nice and cool. We'd come out here and we picked for a while, and then it’d start raining, we'd go in the shed and sit down and talk for a while. Good memories.”
The district’s decision to return the property to the county comes just over a month after the county and city of San Diego posted large, red signs at various locations in the Tijuana River Valley.
They warn the public to avoid areas where toxic gases have been detected because of sewage pollution. The signs say “adults, children and animals” should avoid the immediate area and any contact with the river water. If someone experiences symptoms and they persist or worsen, they should “seek medical care.”
One of those warning signs stands at the entrance of the community garden. Adjacent to it is a large hand-written sign that reads, “save the garden” and “the air is better” than it was two years ago.
Researchers who have been studying the effects of the sewage crisis released data in August that showed a link between water pollution in the river and toxic chemicals and gases, like hydrogen sulfide.
Their study identified a hot spot, an area that is the largest source of the toxic sewer gas, hydrogen sulfide, just west of the garden. The garden is located along Hollister Street and Sunset Avenue.
Still, scientists acknowledge that not enough is known about the long-term impacts of exposure to hydrogen sulfide.
Areli Perez works with the resource conservation district. She told the San Diego County Board of Supervisors last week that losing the garden would devastate the community.
“Gardeners and farmers recognize the potential health concerns in the valley,” she said. “Yet they firmly believe that the benefits of this space far outweigh the risk.”
“We are calling on the county of San Diego to step in and ensure the garden's future,” Perez added.
In recent years, the river valley, including the garden, has flooded after severe rainstorms. Flows mix with sediment, trash and untreated wastewater from Mexico. When the garden floods, the district said it conducts soil testing. Gardeners return to their plots after the district determines it is safe.
Following a vote last week, the county will ask the State Water Resources Control Board to fund a $1 million study to test the soil and water within the Tijuana River Valley for contamination.
“This study is an important step in identifying hard evidence required by the Environmental Protection Agency to act and move toward a Superfund designation,” County Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer said in a statement. “This work is all in an effort toward ensuring that residents are no longer left to live, work, and raise families in the shadow of one of America’s most contaminated waterways.”
The district announced earlier this year that it was also terminating its lease with the county for Wild Willow Farm and Education Center, another farm in the Tijuana River Valley, because it was operating at a loss.
“(D)espite investments into the site, there was no sustainable path for the RCD to continue operating it without jeopardizing our other conservation work,” the district announced on its website.
Financials did not drive the decision to return the Tijuana River garden to the county, however, a district spokesperson said.
“(T)he Garden more or less operates at break-even, although in some years it does experience a minor financial loss,” the spokesperson said.
County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre addressed Tijuana River gardeners in a social media post last week, saying she would meet with them in the coming days.
“I just want you to know that I hear you, I see you, I'm going to fight for you or to figure this out together. I stand with you.”
