They came armed not with lawyers or lobbyists, but with personal testimony, scientific briefings, and the kind of moral clarity that only comes from growing up next to a disaster. Last Tuesday, students from Coronado High School’s “Stop the Sewage Club” flew to Sacramento for the second time in four months and spent the day going door-to-door through the state Capitol, pressing California’s elected officials to act and use the full force of the state on the cross-border sewage and pollution crisis that has plagued South San Diego County for years. This second trip was part of World Oceans Day and included adults and graduate college students regarding California’s coastal waters and air issues. CUSD Trustee President Renee Cavanaugh, StopTheSewage.org founder Laura Wilkinson Sinton, and teachers Abbi Hartge, Amanda Vannase, and Jolene Wilbur accompanied the students.

The Stop the Sewage Club — now the largest student-run club in the Coronado Unified School District, with more than 80 members — made the trip to lobby for two key bills: Assembly Bill 35, which would help unlock funding for wastewater infrastructure fixes in the South Bay, and Senate Bill 58, which would update California’s hydrogen sulfide air quality standards. Hydrogen sulfide, the toxic gas responsible for the rotten-egg smell that has become grimly familiar to Coronado and Imperial Beach residents, is currently regulated under standards that student advocates say are dangerously out of date.

Upon arriving at the Capitol, the students wasted no time diving into a packed schedule of meetings. Armed with researched presentations, compelling personal testimonies, and a clear command of the proposed legislation, they made the case for AB 35 and SB 58 to nearly 90 percent of state lawmakers’ offices and staff. They met with staff from Coronado’s state representative, Assemblymember Tasha Boerner, and with State Senator Steve Padilla, whose bills they are advocating for. The students’ trip was covered extensively by San Diego television stations KGTV-10, NBC 7, and Telemundo.

The mission was bluntly personal for many who made the trip. Senior Sean Wilbur, one of the club’s founders, described how the sewage crisis had taken away one of the defining experiences of his childhood in Coronado. “In the summer of 2022, when participating in the junior lifeguard program, we spent two of the three weeks unable to enter the water because of the sewage,” he said. “How do we spend two weeks with these kids teaching them about water safety without getting in the water?”

For students like Danielle Elizabeth, in another television interview with NBC 7 anchor Omari Fleming, Danielle Elizabeth Mensah-Baah said: “Hopefully we can put together a puzzle piece of solutions to see some relief for our communities.”

The pollution has not merely been an inconvenience. During a televised interview with the Spanish-language station Telemundo, Coronado High and STS Club leader Kleber Toala passionately described how beach closures and pollution have impacted his younger brother’s health. He used to run on the beach and walk his dog by the beach, but now those activities are nearly impossible. Speaking to Univision television, he explained that students cannot surf, swim, or simply enjoy the beach with their families without fear of getting sick. “This isn’t just an environmental problem,” he said. “It’s a public health crisis that is robbing us of our childhood and our beach community’s way of life.”

Club leader Anika Talaveras spoke of being part of a military family and the negative effects of the sewage crisis. “With thirty percent of our CUSD school system students as active-duty military families, and Silver Strand Elementary school even higher and within mere feet of these polluted waters, we have to work faster towards solutions. The major problem is the fact that California hasn’t declared a state of emergency”.

Senior Quinn Riebe drilled down on the legislative specifics, explaining to lawmakers that AB 35 provides a fast track for crucial infrastructure funding while SB 58 would require updated regulatory health standards for hydrogen sulfide gas. “These bills are not just temporary fixes,” she said. “They are critical steps towards a long-term solution.”

The students’ advocacy exists against a backdrop of years of foot-dragging and incomplete fixes. The Federal government allocated $330 million to mitigate the problem in 2022 — with Mexico contributing another $144 million — yet the full suite of infrastructure projects will take years to complete. AB 35, authored by Assemblymember David Alvarez and sponsored by the County of San Diego, has already passed the Assembly this month with bipartisan support and would accelerate the release of $46 million in Proposition 4 funds for climate change projects. Increasing storms due to climate change are exacerbating flows in the Tijuana River. The students are targeting the state legislature to pressure both countries, given California’s status as the world’s fourth-largest economy, larger than the entire country of Mexico. California lacks jurisdiction over cross-border river pollution projects, yet its citizens are seriously affected.

The recognition for the club’s sustained campaign has been building. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors proclaimed December 9, 2025, as “Coronado High School Stop the Sewage Club Day,” and students have also helped persuade the Coronado City Council to declare a local state of emergency over the sewage crisis. County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer praised the students for elevating a complex policy problem and for energizing the county’s broader push to secure federal resources. “These young people are demonstrating the exact type of effective civic engagement that inspires others,” she said.

For Wilbur and other club members, the path forward is one of relentless, multi-front pressure. “If we pull a hundred levers and maybe one of those is just half of the solution, and then another one is just a quarter of the solution, at some point they’re all going to compile, and we’re going to see some real change,” he said. The club is voting on succession plans in May for leadership among rising seniors, juniors, and sophomores.

For now, the students have returned to Coronado — to classrooms within sight and breath of beaches that remain at risk. They funded the trip themselves, as they have before, through their nonprofit at stopthesewage.org. They are already planning their next visit to Sacramento and their next beach protest to keep local, state, and federal governments focused on fixing this issue once and for all. The Coronado High School Stop the Sewage Club accepts donations and volunteers at stopthesewage.org.

VOL. 116, NO. 18 – May 6, 2026