Briana Franco envisioned a healthy, fun lifestyle for her family when she moved to Imperial Beach four years ago.

It hasn’t gone that way. Her 5-year-old daughter has had a chronic cough since last year that seems to go away when they leave town. Her one-year-old son was on a ventilator for nine days because of respiratory issues, she said. And her air purifier beeps almost every night from her apartment near where untreated wastewater flows over from Tijuana, signifying poor air quality.

“It’s been very bad,” she said Thursday after another night of beeping, coughing and rotten-egg odors. “We moved here to the beach to enjoy the water and raise our kids on the sand, but we don’t even feel comfortable taking them down here.”

Briana Franco’s air purifier turned red Thursday, alerting her of the poor air quality in her Imperial Beach apartment near where sewage pollution spills over from Tijuana.

(Courtesy of Briana Franco)

Franco wants to make better-informed decisions to protect her family’s health. Access to data that shows when and how much toxic gas is in the air would help, she said.

“It would definitely give me peace of mind for my kids,” she said. “They’re in school; they’re outdoors. So, we want to know when the air is even safe for them to be playing outside, running around.”

The San Diego Air Pollution Control District (APCD) has been working to install various air-monitoring stations across South County that can monitor concentrations of hydrogen sulfide and other compounds in the air that contribute to poor air quality.

Eight months ago, the District began running the first of six monitors in San Ysidro. Its data quickly showed that concentrations of wastewater gases sometimes climbed above state thresholds.

The other five have yet to go online. APCD officials said Friday they are working to install the infrastructure as soon as possible, but South County residents are frustrated by the slow pace.

“They should be installed immediately,” said resident Megan Reina, who said she suffers from chronic respiratory and sinus issues and has installed air purifiers in her home. “We shouldn’t be having to pay such high costs to live with health risks.”

In a statement Friday, county Supervisor and APCD board member Nora Vargas said she will push for the installation of the monitors and other temporary arrangements.

“While additional air monitors are crucial for long-term solutions, I’m also focused on finding immediate, short-term measures as we approach the warmer weather months,” she said. “This includes a forthcoming Board letter that will ensure families who have been suffering for years have access to air filters and purifiers for their homes.”

One of the monitoring stations is expected to go on a restroom building adjacent to the Port of San Diego-owned Imperial Beach Pier. The Port is completing an environmental review of the project and plans to have the monitoring station ready by early summer.

Port Commissioner Dan Malcolm, who represents Imperial Beach, said he is committed to “pushing through the red tape as much as we can to get the sensors installed. It’s a priority for our staff.”

Another monitor will go on the roof of the city’s fire department, located on Imperial Beach Boulevard near 9th Street. Two months ago, the City Council approved a contract with the District, greenlighting the agency to install and operate the infrastructure. However, the project is delayed because of installation constraints in the area, said City Manager Tyler Foltz.

Plans also include adding one at the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, but APCD officials said they do not have a timeline for completion. A site plan is pending approval by the county’s Parks Division to place one at the Tijuana River Valley Campground. And a sixth monitor will be a roaming one for quality control, the District said.

Meanwhile, residents said odors have been especially bad in recent weeks, despite their efforts to mitigate the nauseating stench that seeps into their homes. They are bracing for another summer with their windows closed.

Per the APCD’s data collected from its San Ysidro monitoring station, there is a correlation between higher temperatures and higher concentrations of sewer gas. The highest recorded level was 43.45 ppb at around 7 a.m. on Oct. 5. To date, levels of hydrogen sulfide have repeatedly measured between 10 ppb and 28.48 ppb.

California sets its air quality standard at 30 ppb and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration at 10 ppb.

The recently reported strong odors are, in large part, due to hotter and drier conditions. After the recent rainy season, flows in the Tijuana River are decreasing, but significant dry weather flows remain via the Smugglers Gulch, a creek carrying untreated sewage and trash from Tijuana that discharges into the Tijuana River, according to the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC).

Some work is under way to fix the South Bay treatment plant that serves as a backstop for Tijuana. The IBWC said it is working with its Mexican counterparts to initiate upstream erosion control measures that should help reduce flows.

Malcolm said that while the public deserves access to air monitoring data, he is more concerned about “getting at the root of the problem. The sensors are going to tell us what we already know.”

He urged the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board on Thursday to keep the IBWC accountable for prioritizing, along with its other projects, a river diversion project that would increase the capture of dry-weather flows entering the San Diego region.

On Friday, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre reminded her colleagues on the California Coastal Commission that “in eight days our beaches (in Imperial Beach) will reach a milestone of having been closed for 900 consecutive days.” Aguirre added that she recently brought “our serious public health concerns” about residents’ respiratory issues to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Washington, D.C.

APCD officials have said that data its monitors collect will be shared with local, state and federal agencies, such as the CDC, and health researchers to better understand how long-term exposure affects people’s health.