What has happened to the daily ocean water quality map that was easy to find on our cell phones and which included the water quality test results for Coronado beaches? It was easy to use, attractive, and was posted at the end of each day on the website with the time it was posted. “Check In Before You Get In.”
I cannot do that now. I was waiting for today’s map to be posted because yesterday’s map showed safe-to-swim at North Beach and, maybe, at Central, yet not as safe next door at the Shores. If the water was tested today, Wednesday, and is posted as “green” at about 5 pm, I can still safely swim in the ocean today.
It is a bad news day for ocean swimmers.
I no longer know if North Beach was actually tested today. The “test” map was “yellow” at the Shores yesterday and green next door at Central and North Beach. It would seem safer for swimmers in Coronado to go to North Beach in late afternoon today.
Another change. Why is the Coastkeeper organization popping up in the Coronado beach water quality search? Do they test South County beaches daily? Even the Eagle’s water and air quality weekly report posted by a Coronado Environmental organization does not give current dates, just highs and lows and how often each week the water had been safe to swim or not!
How do I know if the water was even tested today in Coronado? San Diego County’s format is gone. Worse, there is an AI summary for Coronado beaches. Has the City of Coronado convinced the County to make it hard to find out that Coronado beaches are usually unsafe to swim this year?
My Fourth of July plea to the City of Coronado is to stand up for Coronado residents and visitors and Navy Seals and Imperial Beach and the ocean environment.
Tell Mexico:
Treat Tijuana sewage in Mexico.
Tell the U.S.:
Stop(!) *sending Tijuana sewage to U.S. beaches.
*[This is crazy. Every day 35 mgd (million gallons a day) of partially treated imported (!) sewage and, now, about an equal amount of raw T.J. sewage are released into the ocean from the 11-foot-diameter, 3-mile-long South Bay Ocean Outfall Pipe (S.B.O.O.).]
The imported Tijuana sewage waters that go into the U.S. ocean from the S.B.O.O. (pipe) then circle to shore at Imperial Beach and on up as far as Coronado, depending on the strength and flow of the counter-clockwise Coronado Littoral Current. Ocean scientists predicted the sewage would flow to our beaches before the pipe began operating in 1998.
Good news: There is a short-term fix to open our beaches. (2 years to do it, $98 million.) Rebuild the pipe that goes from the South Bay (partial) Treatment Plant to the Point Loma Ocean Outfall. Then shut down the South Bay Ocean Outfall. “The S.B.O.O.must go!” We want to swim again on Coronado beaches.
VOL. 116, NO. 26 – July 1, 2026