Matt Henry says his goal is to catch 2,026 waves in 2026.<\/p>\n
Standing with his 13-year-old son, Liam, in the plaza at the foot of the Imperial Beach Pier on a clear Wednesday morning, Henry bowed his head to pray before paddling out.<\/p>\n
Midway through, he had a brief focal seizure \u2014 a neurological episode that, to the untrained eye, can look like a few moments of confusion or a sudden, distant stare. He said it\u2019s a byproduct of the cancer he lives with everyday.<\/p>\n
Liam held him until it passed. Then they grabbed their boards and paddled out.<\/p>\n
Henry, 45, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer a decade ago. Doctors gave him three years. He has outlived that prognosis more than three times over, and he credits surfing \u2014 the discipline of it, the ritual, the feeling \u2014 with getting him through. It is, he says, the difference between whether he can function on a given day or not.<\/p>\n
The surf that morning was clean and glassy, two to three feet, low tide, with barreling peaks breaking up and down the serene I.B. coastline. To top it off, there was no one out.<\/p>\n
But in Imperial Beach, this scene comes with a caveat: wafting through the light onshore wind was that faint, unmistakable stench of sewage drifting in from the south.<\/p>\n
Henry knows it\u2019s there. He surfs anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m not going to give up in a fight against cancer when they\u2019re telling me, make your arrangements,\u201d he said, \u201cthen I\u2019m certainly not going to let this hold me back.\u201d<\/p>\n
On this bright, early spring morning, Imperial Beach looks like any other Southern Californian beach town. The pier stretches into the Pacific as fisherman perch from its railings. Murals and sculptures line the streets. Restaurants fill with locals, hotel guests, and the occasional visitor from up the coast. And yet, for years, the air has been tainted. The beaches have been closed \u2014 advisory signs posted at the water\u2019s edge, warning people to stay out.<\/p>\n
A roughly four-square-mile city of approximately 26,000 residents at the southwesternmost corner of the continental United States, Imperial Beach has been the epicenter of one of the country\u2019s most protracted environmental and public health crises. Millions of gallons a day of raw, untreated sewage and industrial waste flows north through the Tijuana River, across the border, into the Tijuana River Estuary and out into the Pacific \u2014 polluting the air as well.<\/p>\n
The human and economic toll on the city has been well-documented. What receives less attention is everything else Imperial Beach is trying to do at the same time \u2014 and the people, like Henry, who have decided that staying and fighting is the only answer they can live with.<\/p>\n
A new dynamic at City Hall
\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SUT-L-SBA-ROUNDTABLE-008.jpg\")
A roundtable meeting on the Tijuana River sewage with Imperial Beach business owners and U.S. Small Business Administration officials at Imperial Beach on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. Imperial Beach Mayor Mitch McKay, center, and U.S. Small Business Administration Deputy Administrator William Briggs, right, listen during the meeting. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Since former Mayor Paloma Aguirre\u2019s departure to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors last summer, a new governing dynamic has taken hold at City Hall. Aguirre, a crusading force in bringing attention to the pollution crisis alongside her predecessor, Serge Dedina, continues to push for solutions from her new post \u2014 groundwork that has given the city\u2019s current leadership room to widen its focus.<\/p>\n
Mayor Mitch McKay, who spent four decades in aerospace before running for City Council in 2022, now leads that effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they (residents) wanted something a little more middle of the road,\u201d McKay said, clarifying the council was not departing from the fight on pollution, but rather dialing back the rhetoric and focusing on a wider array of municipal issues. A tone that, by at least one account from within City Hall, appears to be filtering through the entire council.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Mariko Nakawatase, who was appointed to the council and is its youngest member, credited McKay with creating space for members to collaborate, while at the same time, operate independently if need be.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gives a lot of space for all of us to speak our minds,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019re all really respectful of each other because we do appreciate each other\u2019s opinions and mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aguirre, who remains a resident of Imperial Beach, said she hasn\u2019t followed City Hall\u2019s work as closely since taking her county seat. But she said she has taken note of the shift in tone on the council regarding the pollution crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it\u2019s a different type of leadership, and different type of approach than I would take,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The shift has not gone unnoticed by residents \u2014 and not all of them view it the same way.<\/p>\n
Sandy Brillhart is a 74-year-old retired resident who moved to I.B. from the East Coast 13 years ago and serves as vice president of the Imperial Beach Democratic Club. In her view, the current council isn\u2019t doing enough community outreach and awareness on the crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re doing enough advocacy,\u201d she said. \u201cI think this council is somewhat negligent with regard to that. I think they could be doing a better job keeping the public informed and telling us what we could do as citizens, who we should be contacting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry, meanwhile, sees value in both approaches. He respects Aguirre\u2019s full-court press and believes it has unlocked real resources. But he appreciates the more moderate approach of McKay and this current council.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaloma was really like, \u2018Hey, we have to talk about it all the time, we need the attention,\u2019\u201d Henry said. \u201cBut Mitch and the new city council have changed things a little bit to, \u2018Hey, the water\u2019s dirty, but the businesses are open.\u2019 And I think that\u2019s really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
The front line of the economic fallout
\n![\"Michele](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SUT-L-IB-PROFILE-002.jpg\")
Michele Borelli and Elisa Borelli pose for a photo at Balsamico Italian Kitchen on Thursday, March 19, 2026 in Imperial Beach, California. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
For those business owners trying to keep their doors open, however, the view from City Hall offers little immediate relief.<\/p>\n
Sandi Crosby, president of the Imperial Beach Chamber of Commerce and broker for the Crosby Home Team real estate firm, said the situation is particularly acute for one type of business: restaurants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ones that are feeling it the most are 1,000% the restaurants \u2014 because not only with rising minimum wage costs and food costs, they also now have less business because of the sewage issue,\u201d Crosby said.<\/p>\n
Balsamico Italian Kitchen owner Elisa Borelli described the impact of what she said feels like \u201cthousands and thousands of days in a row\u201d of beach closures \u2014 a stretch that has turned the city\u2019s best asset into its biggest liability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to stay positive,\u201d Borelli said. \u201cI really hope it\u2019s going to get better, that the beaches open back up and the people will come again. But for sure something has to change. Because right now, I\u2019m not sure how long we can keep waiting, keep hoping that things will change.\u201d<\/p>\n
The restaurant opened after the pandemic and experienced one normal summer before the pattern reversed itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first summer that we opened, it was a real summer,\u201d she said. \u201cEver since then, ever since the pollution really got worse, summers have not been real summers. As far as traffic, sales, tourists, there\u2019s been a decline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crosby said her brokerage is doing well in absolute terms, but the underlying market in I.B. is measurably depressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe consensus is that the sewage has probably impacted home sales between 12% and 15%,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She cited the loss of a buyer segment that had emerged around 2022 \u2014 people from Coronado and elsewhere who had begun discovering I.B. as an accessible coastal alternative \u2014 as particularly significant. When the crisis intensified in 2024, that segment largely disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like all of a sudden it put this stain on I.B. that we are just known as the sewage town,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s just so unfortunate because that is so little of what the city really is.\u201d<\/p>\n
A city that keeps building<\/p>\n
Even as the pollution crisis dominates headlines and impacts businesses, Imperial Beach\u2019s city government has been accumulating a portfolio of infrastructure and development projects that officials say signal a community refusing to stand still.<\/p>\n
Among them, City Manager Tyler Foltz said, is a multimillion-dollar renovation of the Sports Park Recreation Center, set to include a fully rehabbed gym and the city\u2019s first indoor pickleball courts.<\/p>\n
Dunes Park is being reconstructed. A new splash pad is in the works. The city recently secured a $26 million grant from the San Diego Association of Governments for a full rebuild of Palm Avenue \u2014 incorporating sidewalks, bike infrastructure, art, lighting and landscaping. A separate grant of over $2 million was awarded for a gateway entrance sign into the city.<\/p>\n
Two hotels are in various stages of development: a Home2 Suites at Seventh and Palm and a proposed project at Seacoast Drive and Imperial Beach Boulevard.<\/p>\n
Recent completed projects include full roadway rebuilds on Imperial Beach Boulevard, 10th Street and Ninth Street \u2014 each incorporating what Foltz described as an \u201cartist mentality,\u201d with artistic crosswalks, mosaic inlays, solar lighting and drought-tolerant landscaping.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to still keep that sense of place within Imperial Beach and make people proud to live in this community,\u201d Foltz said.<\/p>\n
This pipeline of projects reflects years of work \u2014 much of it initiated under former Mayors Dedina and Aguirre \u2014 that the current administration is now seeing through.<\/p>\n
Aguirre pointed to several of those initiatives as priorities she championed during her tenure, describing them as inseparable from the broader fight to keep Imperial Beach livable during the crisis. Among them was the splash pad, built expressly to give children an alternative recreational outlet while the beaches remained closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a delicate balance,\u201d Aguirre said. \u201cI was always focused on improving the quality of life beyond the sewage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brillhart, who rides her bike along the estuary with her husband nearly every day, sees those efforts for what they are \u2014 and appreciates them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of positive things that already exist in the community that just get overshadowed by this sewage issue,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are great restaurants, the estuary, the bikeway. There\u2019s a lot to do here.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she is careful not to let her optimism outrun reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always worried about what it\u2019s doing to me health-wise,\u201d said Brillhart, who is immunocompromised. While her chronic eye irritation and scratchy throat are not debilitating, she said she did not have them before moving to I.B. \u201cI\u2019m not going to let it stop me from doing the things that caused me to move here in the first place. But I don\u2019t feel as comfortable doing it as I did when we initially moved here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tourism problem \u2014 and the problem of talking about it
\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SUT-L-IB-PROFILE-018.jpg\")
A keep out sign is seen by the Imperial Beach Pier on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
One of the subtler tensions running through the business community is around tourism promotion itself.<\/p>\n
Crosby, who took over the chamber a few years ago, said she has worked to build cohesion through regular gatherings and peer-learning opportunities.<\/p>\n
But the question of how aggressively to promote I.B. to outside visitors is genuinely contested within the community. I.B., she noted, has no dedicated tourism board, and neither the chamber nor the city has funding to establish one. More fundamentally, she said, \u201cit\u2019s hard to push for tourism when half the population of I.B. doesn\u2019t think you should be pushing for tourism because of the sewage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concern is not without basis.<\/p>\n
The so-called Saturn Boulevard hot spot, where polluted water churns through concrete culverts, has been identified as the epicenter of the Tijuana River Valley air pollution crisis in the South Bay. Research shows the area releases millions of particles, aerosols and molecules of dangerous pollutants into the air \u2014 including hydrogen sulfide<\/a>, which has twice spiked to record levels in the last two weeks<\/a>, according to data from the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District.<\/p>\n County survey data reflects the toll: Nearly 70% of residents reported illness, and 90% said the crisis affects their daily life.<\/p>\n During one particularly severe stretch, Henry said he and his family slept in their living room together, huddled around an air purifier \u2014 and then moved into their converted school bus in the driveway because it was easier to control the air in a smaller space. His wife, Chrissy, 44, developed exercise-induced asthma. One of his teenage children gasped for air in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n The risk, likewise, applies to the surf.<\/p>\n \u201cSurfing is medicine for me in a big way, but I can\u2019t recommend surfing here to people,\u201d Henry said. \u201cIf there\u2019s tourists and others, I tell them, \u2018No, it\u2019s real serious.\u2019 I don\u2019t know, maybe we\u2019ve got a little bit of immunity from living here, but it\u2019s real serious.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, while acknowledging the public health impacts, Crosby pushed back on the perception that the pollution is a constant, all-consuming presence.<\/p>\n \u201cI think people have this misconception that it stinks all the time down here, and that is just not the case,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cThere\u2019s weeks and months where you\u2019re not walking around just smelling sewage all the time. So people should not be afraid to come here.\u201d<\/p>\n What it means to be from here<\/p>\n For all the policy complexity and economic strain, officials and business owners \u2014 and residents like Henry and Brillhart \u2014 consistently returned to something harder to quantify: the particular character of the place itself.<\/p>\n McKay, who has lived in Imperial Beach for 63 years, described it without much elaboration.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my home,\u201d he said. \u201cYou take care of home, take care of your yard, sometimes you take care of your neighbor\u2019s yard.\u201d<\/p>\n Nakawatase grew up in the city, played under the council dais as a child while her mother served in local government, and now sits on the council herself.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very unique feeling,\u201d she said. \u201cIt makes me all the more passionate about trying to showcase and highlight our town.\u201d<\/p>\n Brillhart moved here at 61 to enjoy a coastal retirement and still does \u2014 just with more worry than she bargained for.<\/p>\n \u201cI still think I.B. is a great place,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope that we get back to being able to enjoy our beautiful coast and beach soon.\u201d<\/p>\n Imperial Beach seems to have settled on a variation of the same message: the city is more than its crisis, that the work of being a city continues regardless, and that the community\u2019s resilience is both its greatest asset and its most tested one.<\/p>\n Henry, for his part, is not going anywhere. He surfs contaminated water every morning because it is the one thing that makes the rest of the day possible. He is raising six kids in a city where the air outside causes them breathing difficulties. He is living with a tumor that has no cure. But on that Wednesday morning, after surfing nearly an hour, he said he caught 18 waves \u2014 on his way to 2,026.<\/p>\n![\"Imperial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SUT-L-IB-PROFILE-016.jpg\")
Matt Henry rides a wave as his son Liam watches at the Imperial Beach Pier. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Henry says his goal is to catch 2,026 waves in 2026. Standing with his 13-year-old son, Liam,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1697,7,929,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,3055,4931,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-252908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-baja-california","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-imperial-beach","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-county","16":"tag-san-diego-headlines","17":"tag-san-diego-news","18":"tag-south-county","19":"tag-tijuana","20":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}