Wave of beaches are shut down after officials make sickening discovery in the sea water

A wave of beaches in San Diego have been closed after a disgusting discovery in the water.

City health officials have released an updated advisory and closure list of beaches as sewage causes frighteningly high levels of bacteria in open waters.

Water contact closures have been issued for Silver Strand Shoreline, Imperial Beach Shorelines and the Tijuana Slough Shoreline, located along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Advisories have been issued for La Jolla, Children’s Pool, Coronado, Coronado Lifeguard Tower, Ocean Beach, Dog Beach, the San Diego River Outlet, Mission Bay, North Cove and Vacation Isle.

At Imperial Beach, the dirtiest beach in the country, bright yellow warning signs have been placed on the sand as sewage flows in from Tijuana, Mexico. KGTV reported.

“The level of stress when you smell the stench, when you get sick and worry about your children, and the level of stress and depression is real,” Dr. Marvel Harrison said during a news conference Monday.

‘It’s difficult to measure, but it is there.’

Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer announced they plan to work to secure state and federal funding to solve the city’s century-old sewer problem.

“We need our state and federal governments to declare a state of emergency,” she advised.

“Our community deserves clean air and clean water, and we will not rest until this is resolved.”

The Surfrider Foundation tested thousands of water samples across the country and every sample recovered from Imperial Beach returned bacteria counts that exceeded the state health standard for recreational water.

To secure the funding, city officials plan to collect all the necessary data to solve the unsanitary problem that has taken over the beach city.

“We will also pursue additional funding and support to address the public and economic impacts of the sewage crisis,” Lawson-Remer said.

California is home to three of the most polluted beaches in the country, according to the activist network.

The Surfrider Foundation also found that 64 percent of the 567 locations tested contained at least one sample with unsafe bacteria levels.

A quarter of the samples came from locations in California, with three beaches in The Golden State among the ten most polluted.

The other heavily contaminated sites in California include Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica, where the study found more than half of samples contained unsafe levels of bacteria.

At the mouth of San Luis Obispo Creek, in San Luis Obispo, 35 percent of samples showed high levels of bacteria.

Imperial Beach has been closed for more than two years as toxic, untreated water from the Tijuana River watershed flows into the Pacific Ocean before reaching the city.

Aguirre previously told the newspaper LA times: ‘People in my community are getting sick left and right.

“We cannot afford to continue to pass the buck across the border because we have a dire situation here on American soil, on Californian soil, that is hurting California voters.”

Residents living near the beach say they are experiencing health problems due to the cross-border sewage problem.

In March, resident Shannon Johnson, who has lived a few blocks from the beach since 2010, said she and her children no longer set foot on the sand.

Johnson told CBS, “Every time we go by the beach, they ask, ‘Is it going to be clean? When are they going to fix it?’

Even though Imperial Beach has had beach closures for more than 700 days in a row, residents continue to suffer the consequences of pollution every day.

Johnson said her young children have also been exposed to the foul odor while attending school near the river valley.

According to a study from San Diego State University, heavy metals, toxic chemicals and bacteria found in water are released into the air and remain in the soil.

“I’ve been more frustrated than ever since we found out it was going up in the air. So it’s not just the water,” another resident told CBS.

Another resident who wrote a letter calling for action said the smell is “like being stuck in a portable toilet,” so strong it wakes them up at night.

Normally, ocean water is usually clean, except after it rains and runoff and storm water ends up on the beach.

San Diego’s Beach and Bay Program have created a handy map to help residents determine the alert levels at their local beaches.

Black and yellow signs represent sewage advisories, blue and orange signs inform people of warnings, and a bright yellow and red sign means beaches are closed due to sewage problems.