Lourdes Twilegar
Lisa Griffin Humanities P.M. Class
10/26/17
Water Quality Concerns and Actions in San Diego and Tijuana
Part One: Introduction
The Tijuana River Estuary caught my eye when my classmates and I went to Friendship Park in October. We were walking on the beach when I saw how there was sign saying toxic water, and warning not to touch it. This opened my eyes to think about if it is toxic to humans, what about the marine life? So then I decided to chose this topic because I’m very interested in the marine life and the ocean. Sewage spills are something that are a big topic in the Tijuana and San Diego area because our waters are so close some of San Diego's waters can be affected by the spills in Tijuana, because of their run off from the Tijuana River Estuary.
The final product I wanted to make is a video showing the beaches here in San Diego and the beaches in Tijuana. Also I want to get water samples and see the underwater life and see if I can tell the differences in their water VS our waters, I also want to see if the waters in Tijuana have more dead marine life then in San Diego . I hope that my final product will get out and when people see it they can see that there is a difference in the waters . I hope I can see if it’s the same or not when it comes to the water quality.
I know about some of the local marine life here in San Diego. Also with my love for the ocean, it helps me be more willing to go swimming in the ocean for my research. I know how the water from the Tijuana estuary river was having a big impact on the water in Imperial beach. I wanted to learn more about the Tijuana River Estuary and how it works.
I wonder how much work has been done in the past years to help the Tijuana estuary to stop having so much run off into the ocean. I wanted to focus on the marine life and how the Tijuana estuary river is affecting it.
Process
In the early stage of my research, I spoke with my teacher and advisor, Lisa Griffin and Kalle Palmer. Kalle Palmer is my advisor and also a dive researcher who is starting a SCUBA club at our high school, of which I am the co-leader. I spoke with both of them about my idea to film footage underwater and above water, and they were enthusiastic and had a lot of questions. I had a few interviews. My first was with Jeff Crooks, a marine biologist and researcher with the Tijuana River Estuary and much more, and who also works as a professor at the University of San Diego. He came to meet with me and my project research classmate, Alejandro, and explained a lot about the estuary, and how the flow of groundwater works. He discussed how the rainwater mixes with the sewage plant in Tijuana, and the conditions make it so that there are leaks because the plant cannot take on that much water at once. He explained how the plants in the wetlands along the estuary help to filter out the bacteria while the nutrients in the water stream help to actually sustain the plants along that area. His interview was really informative, as I didn’t know much about the Tijuana River Estuary, and it helped me realize the impact of that pollution and what the actual estuary does. It also led me to question my original plan for my video, which was really helpful.
As I continued my research, I spoke again with my advisor, Kalle, who suggested that I do not snorkel in the waters right along the border on either side, out of concern for water quality and my health. That confirmed some of my own suspicions about snorkeling there, and helped me redirect my creative ideas toward a different way I could explore marine life, people’s use of the beaches, and the next phase of my research. She helped me realize how some of the trash and pollution in different areas might lead me to understand how people use and abuse the beach areas and the impact of human activity on marine life in these areas. Around this time, I also participated in an interview with Sandra Lebron Garcia, the Education Coordinator for San Diego Ocean Keeper. She had a lot of information and shared resources, as well as directing me to Tijuana’s ocean and marine preservation organizations.
Along this same time frame, I spoke with my IMAN partners, and mentioned my plan to possibly snorkel or swim in the waters off Tijuana. I could tell by their expressions that they thought this was a terrible idea. They clearly advised me to travel further south, as they said the water in Tijuana and the beaches near them were polluted, with smell and garbage in the waters and along the beaches themselves.
Around this point in my research, I hit a wall, and felt like my original excitement and ideas were absolutely unworkable. I wanted to give up, and felt like there was no solution that was going to feel worth it, and anything like what I actually wanted to invest my time in. I couldn’t believe it; my ideas for papel picado evaporated, my vision for my video was not going to work, and my research felt pointless. I talked to my teachers, and through a dialogue with Lisa I started to form a new idea.
I had the idea to do a new video and look at my research in a different way, this made me think about a different thing to look at and this lead me to learning more about the river and learning about the beaches.
What I Learned
I learned a lot about water systems in our border region, though that wasn’t originally my plan. For example, the marine biologist I interviewed shared a lot of information and showed us through his website more about water quality in San Diego and Tijuana (Crooks).
I also learned a lot when I actually went out to the beach and saw different things, as in trash on and sayings that said stuff about how the water is not good. I went to Imperial beach to take photos and videos for my final and I was very shocked because it was nothing like I thought it would be, it was clean and there wasn't sayings saying don't swim in the ocean, so when I actually went there and it changed my whole mind set. Then I went to Mission Beach and it was dirty and the trash cans were nasty and the sand has so much trash and it makes me very sad.
With talking to my partners in Tijuana I had asked them about my topic and the conversion had started with me telling them my idea for my final project to snorkel here and in Tijuana and their faces told me everything. Right when I had said that they looked at each other and then told me how they would have me go farther down south because the baches and the water is just plain gross right there on the beaches of Tijuana. They also told me how people don’t really respect the beaches like even if there is a trash can right there you would still see trash right on the floor next to it. This talk with my partner's definitely changed my out ideas to maybe not just looking at the waters but the beaches too. With looking at the beaches this changed my outlook a lot because this is a lot to do with humans not respecting the beaches.
I had 5 people from our team at my house to work on all of our final projects and then we had a good time doing the photoshoot for human trafficking. Then that sunday we spent the whole day at the beach and I got all the video footage I needed. When I went home to edit the day of footage and then I had went to the kitchen to eat dinner and in that span of time my dog had eaten my SD scared that had all the footage on it and then I lost not just my final project but my friend’s project that is working on a different topic. This was a big moment where I can say I learned a big lesson that I will be way more careful with from now on.
Reflection
My research started with my love of the ocean and I wanted to know how the waters are in Tijuana compared to the oceans here on this side of the border. Then I had gone to Kalle Palmer and asked her more about my topic. She is a teacher at my school, but previously she worked and still is a marine biology she was my first interview and source. She help me get in contact with more people also she helped me with some of my ideas for my final project. Then I had multiple more interviews and with each interview I learned more about my topic and subtopics with my main idea. Learning more about subtopics helped me kinda have the idea I have today because some of the ideas I had when we first started wouldn’t have worked because of one my health.
One thing I did not necessarily learn from my rechearch but I learned not to give up on myself. There was a moment where I didn't want to do my final project and not do my paper cut out thing but I talked to my teacher Lisa. She believed in me and knew I could do both my projects and that taught me a lot more than Google could, because that made me realize I need to stop giving up so quick and just do what my gut tells me to do in the first place and this is to me a super good lesson.
Works Cited
Smith, Joshua Emerson. “New Beach Closures Issued from Tijuana River Sewage.”Sandiegouniontribune.com, 8 Nov. 2017, www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sd-me-beaches-closed-20171108-story.html.
“Sewage from Tijuana River Prompts IB Shore Closures.” fox5sandiego.Com, 10 May 2017, fox5sandiego.com/2017/05/09/post-storm-tijuana-river-runoff-prompts-imperial-beach-shore-closures/.
Anderson, Erik. “Tijuana River Estuary Endures In Face Of Many Ecological Challenges.”KPBS Public Media, www.kpbs.org/news/2017/sep/07/tijuana-estuary-endures-face-many-ecological-chall/.
Dibble, Sandra, and Joshua Emerson Smith. “Two Countries, One Sewage Problem: Tijuana and San Diego Grapple with Renegade Flows.” Sandiegouniontribune.com, 15 Mar. 2017, www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/sd-me-border-sewage-20170310-story.html.
www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sdut-environment-beach-water-quality-app-2014jan03-story.html.
www.imperialbeachca.gov/index.asp?SEC=722483D3-FA9C-4CD0-AA7A-06DD9F645CFB&Type=B_BASIC.