Federal report concludes hydrogen sulfide spikes near Tijuana River pose public health hazard – San Diego Union-Tribune

Federal report concludes hydrogen sulfide spikes near Tijuana River pose public health hazard  San Diego Union-Tribune

The draft Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry assessment found brief spikes in the gas reached harmful levels near Berry Elementary School, while longer-term averages were not expected to cause additional harm. A federal public health agency has for the first time found hydrogen sulfide in outdoor air near the Tijuana River reached levels that could harm people’s health, concluding in a draft report released Wednesday that short-term exposure to the gas at those levels is a public health hazard. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which works alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based its findings on air monitoring at four sites.

The sites were a UC San Diego station on private property on Leon Avenue, Berry Elementary School about 600 feet away, San Diego Fire Station 29 in San Ysidro and the Imperial Beach Civic Center. The agency found that brief spikes in the colorless, flammable gas, some lasting about 30 minutes, reached levels shown to cause headaches, nose and throat irritation and possible difficulty breathing in sensitive people. Average levels over weeks and months were not high enough to cause additional harm, according to the report, but the agency said it could not determine whether exposure before September 2024 harmed residents’ health, because too little data was collected before then. Supervisor Paloma