The county of San Diego and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began a second assessment of the Tijuana River Valley on Thursday to talk to residents about their health concerns.
When officials first surveyed the region in 2024, they found that residents were suffering from nausea, headaches and coughing.
Now, they hope to identify how the sewage crisis has continued to affect those who call the area home through a second Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER).
County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre, who represents District 1, which includes the Tijuana River Valley, said she expects the new survey will yield similar results.
“I can speak as a resident of the affected area,” she said. “We're going to see the same, if not worse, because that's exactly what I keep hearing from my community constantly.”
The first assessment, conducted in October 2024, found that 80% of respondents said the sewage crisis has affected their quality of life.
Aguirre thinks the way to solve the crisis is to capture and treat the millions of gallons of water that flow through the river daily. She hopes that after this survey, the county is able to install that infrastructure and then conduct a third assessment to see how the river has improved.
Aguirre said this second assessment will show how effective federal efforts have been. The survey will include many of the same questions as the first, with new questions to gauge the effectiveness of air purifiers provided by the county in reducing the impact of the sewage crisis.
“I know some folks are frustrated, annoyed, another study, another study,” Aguirre said. “There haven't really been health studies. We have had environmental studies that have looked at what's present in the environment, what chemicals, toxic gases, pathogens. But we haven't really looked at what's making its way into people's bodies, and that's why this data is so important.”
In addition to throat irritation, trouble sleeping and headaches, Aguirre said she’s now hearing from local health professionals that more people in the region are also dealing with skin rashes.
Dr. Sayone Thihalolipavan, the county public health officer, said the first assessment helped validate what people in the region have been dealing with for years, and this new survey will help see what issues have persisted.
“We want to have the most current information as we continue to talk to our state and federal partners and advocate for more resources and attention on this emergency,” he said. “And this is the only locally proclaimed emergency right now in the county of San Diego, and it's been like that for years. And we want to keep treating it as an emergency.”
Thihalolipavan said the surveys take about 15-20 minutes, are completely voluntary, anonymous, and can be provided in English or Spanish. Teams will be surveying households at random until Saturday at 7 p.m.
He said the teams include county and CDC staff, along with public health students from San Diego State University.
“We want people to feel comfortable responding and participating in the survey,” Thihalolipavan said. “Their input really does make a difference here.”
