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Prospective buyers should be informed
by Serge Dedina
12/12/2006:// Today, WiLDCOAST staged a protest of Donald Trump's planned $200 million condominium and hotel development in Baja California, less than 6 miles from the International Border.
Donald Trump's newest Beachfront Resortwill be built just north of Baja's Punta Bandera, where 30 million gallons of sewage are discharged daily on the beach. Prospective buyers should be informed, so they can ask developers about health risks and sewage collection. This discharge is the same one that closes beaches in Imperial Beach and Coronado during the summer months, when swells take it north.
"We want to warn prospective buyers about the sewage crisis. All condo buyers in the Tijuana-Ensenada corridor should be worried that their new properties will be surrounded by raw sewage", says Serge Dedina, executive director of WiLDCOAST, a non-profit organization that protects costal ecosystems and ildlife. WiLDCOAST organized a protest with surfers today at a Trump Baja Sales Event in San Diego to ask prospective condo buyers to avoid real estate investments that front sewage polluted beaches. The sewage that will pollute Trump's condos also pollutes Baja Malibu, one of Baja's best beach breaks.
The rapid development of the Baja California coastline between Tijuana and Rosarito has outpaced the development of sewage collection and infrastructure. International developers have continued to develop the coast without contributing to necessary infrastructure improvements. The result is an environmental and health crisis as sewage and wastewater are dumped directly on beaches.
A new study, published in this month's issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology by SDSU public health professor Rick Gersberg, shows that these coastal waters near the U.S.-Mexico border almost always harbor harmful viruses, in addition to the bacteria that are usually measured to detect health threats.
"It's important to recognize the presence of the viruses that actually pose the most significant public health risk, and viruses can be present long after the bacteria levels have subsided," said Gersberg, head of the Division of Occupational and Environmental Health in SDSU's Graduate School of Public Health.
HAV and enteroviruses were detected in border waters 90 percent of the time. Gersberg's study is the first quantitative assessment of the statistical relationship between levels of hepatitis A, enterovirus, E. coli and enterococci in marine waters.
Mexico is not hiding its sewage problems from developers. We found an honest assessment of the Rosarito -Punta Bandera - Tijuana area in the Mexican Government website.
According to Baja California's Secretary of the Environment, the sewage treatment at Punta Bandera was not designed to handle the industrial waste it currently receives from Tijuana, and that the "treated" effluent "fails to meet Mexican water quality standards for ocean discharges, exceeding limits for heavy metals, oils, suspended solids, and organic waste (sewage)."
The Secretary adds that this beach discharge "has a significant effect on the coastal environment and is the focus of international conflict." The analysis points out that, "wastewater and sewage being dumped directly on beaches, mostly affects Playas de Tijuana, Punta Bandera, and Rosarito".
"No surfer in their right mind should be surfing or buying condos anywhere near this area," said WiLDCOAST'S Dedina.
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