Nearly a decade ago, during a four-year stint at the U.S. consulate in Tijuana, Bridget Premont and her family bought a home in Imperial Beach.
“We were just charmed by the (Tijuana) estuary, by the (San Diego) bay, by the ocean, of course,” she said. “Water all around, 400 species of birds.”
Cross-border pollution loomed large at the consulate at the time, she said.
“This was right at the beginning of a lot of the big infrastructure breaks that we saw happening in Tijuana. And the consulate played a big role in trying to engage more frequently with what was called at that time the Minute 320 Working Group, that’s part of the U.S.-Mexico Water treaty,” Premont added.
In 2024, sewage flows in the binational Tijuana River broke records and preliminary research showed that pollution in the water was becoming airborne. Like many of her South County neighbors, Premont and her family felt choked by the noxious odors.
Last month, the county hired her as the first pollution crisis chief. The position, approved in January, includes coordinating infrastructure fixes with federal, state and local agencies, real-time emergency response when sewage spills occur, maintaining a public funding dashboard, chairing a county task force on the sewage crisis and keeping the public informed.
Premont recently spoke with KPBS about her background and vision for the inaugural county position. The conversation below was edited for clarity.
Q: What is your vision for this role?
Premont: My vision really is to try to focus on long-term planning. So to connect all of those offices together, to try to determine what we've spent in the past so that we can more easily show why future investment on this is really worth it to the taxpayer. We have been approaching this in kind of a stopgap way. And by we, I mean state, local, federal government(s); it feels that way. So, I really hope that my role can help state, local, and federal government(s) to come together and try to plan together.
Q: Given your background working in Tijuana, as well, your relationship with Mexican officials, how will you bring that to the table to help facilitate solutions?
Premont: I think that having been a federal official, the talking point that this is a technical issue best left to the experts that's a familiar talking point to me. But what we're seeing from people all around the county is that they understand this issue very well, and they don't feel it's too technical, and they want answers from their leaders. So certainly county leadership has a responsibility to respond to those people, in a way that maybe the federal government doesn't feel on a daily basis in the same way. So while we do very sincerely want to engage with federal partners, gone are the days that we are going to forget about this. Like this is part of what I'll be doing is making sure that this is front and center for whomever is, you know, running the IBWC.
Q: It seems like the county is really saying enough is enough. We have a much greater role to play in this crisis. I'm curious what you think about the county just saying there's more we can do here.
Premont: I'm not, you know, a chief of crises. I'm a chief of crisis response. But I think the first step in understanding how to solve this is accepting the fact that the solution means working on this for the long term, planning out really far in the future and dedicating funds toward that end.
One thing that's really important in crisis management is recognizing that when emotion is involved, things can get a little crazy. … I'm even reminding myself now, this is not helpful to turn this into an emotional thing. I think that there is a very palpable sense of, I'm tired of waiting. I'm just going to do something, you know? That is a real thing and I approach that full of respect.
But at the same time, I think it's reasonable to say, like, we know that the source of this problem is in Mexico. The engineers tell us that the most cost-effective way to address it is in Mexico. We're not denying that in any way. But the county, as local government, wants to be responsive to its constituents. … And we can't be waiting for 10 or 15 years to see improvement. So that is why we are studying this. What could we possibly do from this side?
Q: There are other things that the county is doing, like getting rid of this hot spot (at Saturn Boulevard), right? Can you talk a little bit about those projects that we could probably see in the coming years?
Premont: So they have to do, first, all the design and then the permitting. And those things do take time. But I can tell you that the planning for that second phase is definitely already well underway. So and then the third step of this is really again, the feasibility study for some kind of larger infrastructure that could be, construction of some kind of treatment plant. The county is also interested in looking at what could be done with the water that's captured, meaning, like, could it be reclaimed? Could it be treated to various degrees for different kinds of consumption?
Q: I did want to go back to you being an Imperial Beach resident and how the sewage crisis has impacted you as a resident there.
Premont: My story is it starts with the fact that I was a U.S. diplomat for almost 25 years. So my family and I have lived all around the world. We were assigned to Tijuana, Mexico, in 2017. I did know a lot about this issue over those four years. But to be honest, it never entered my mind when I thought about buying a property in Imperial Beach because, you know, we love the beach, but my family are not surfers. And, we thought, oh, it's a beautiful place. In the early morning, you know, we would always sleep with all the windows closed and now with county air purifiers, but then you get up early, and as soon as you open the door, you know, to let the dog out or something. There were days when it would kind of hit you in the face. That smell.
Q: I wonder, too, if in this role you envision working with the community directly, going to, I mean, your neighbors essentially, right?
Premont: So, yeah. So actually, it's good that you brought that up because I was gonna forget. November 14th, the county is hosting a healthy community fair at the Imperial Beach Library. And the point of this is to discuss results of a new study that's just come out from the ATSDR, which is a division of the CDC, looking at health effects and I will be there.
