San Diego County's First Pollution Crisis Chief, Bridget Premont, Takes Office to Tackle the Tijuana River Sewage Crisis
SAN DIEGO — Bridget Premont took office on October 19 as San Diego County's first-ever pollution crisis chief, a newly created position dedicated to the long-running cross-border sewage crisis in the Tijuana River Valley, in San Diego County, California. She will work inside the County Counsel's Office.
From 2017 to 2021, Premont served as political and economic chief at the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, where she also served as acting consul general. During that time she advocated for action on cross-border pollution in the Tijuana River Valley, and according to San Diego County she helped secure more than $340 million in U.S. and Mexican federal funding to fight cross-border water pollution.
As pollution crisis chief, Premont will coordinate with federal, state and local agencies on infrastructure upgrades and work to secure funding for sewage-crisis mitigation. She will chair the new Sewage Crisis Interdepartmental Task Force and establish and run a public funding dashboard to ensure transparency in how resources are allocated. She will also coordinate media briefings, community meetings and bilingual information campaigns.
For decades, untreated sewage, trash and contaminated runoff have flowed across the U.S.-Mexico border through the Tijuana River Valley into coastal waters in southern San Diego County, driving prolonged beach closures around Imperial Beach and persistent odors for valley residents. Measure B, a half-cent countywide sales tax on the November ballot, would generate an estimated $400 million to $450 million a year, with 22.5% of the proceeds set aside to address the crisis. (GSM, based on San Diego County and California City News)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 蒂华纳河谷（资料图），经 Wikimedia Commons 发布，CC0。Tijuana River Valley (file photo), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
