Every blue city has its big, man-made problems. In New York, it's illegal immigrants. In San Francisco, vagrants, and the homelessness-industrial complex of enabling NGOs. In Oakland, it's continuous crime, zero prosecutions. Some cities, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, have a combination of these self-induced problems.

In San Diego, the problem is that its surf-paradise beaches are the nation's filthiest, with any tourist going into the water finding himself swimming in a Mexican toilet.

Now it's the Fourth of July weekend, and the beachgoers are out.

According to Fox News:

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — With the Fourth of July holiday week in motion, San Diego beaches have become more and more crowded, in turn, causing many people to notice water advisories, warnings and closures.

“I came down and there was a sign over there…it said something about sewage coming from Mexico,” said Peter Werner, who is visiting from Czech Republic.

Most locals aren’t surprised by the water contact closures that have been in place since December, but visitors aren’t happy.

“Disappointing, especially when I came over 10,000 kilometers from Europe not to swim here,” Werner said.

After all, if he had wanted to swim in a Mexican toilet, he could have gone to Mexico for much cheaper.

Amy Reichert has a reminder of how bad the whole picture looks:

Where’s @GavinNewsom ?Lifeguards in San Diego are ordering people out of the water on the 4th of July due to sewage contamination from Tijuana, Mexico. Beaches have been closed for over 900 consecutive days! pic.twitter.com/0nCHuRgVgt

— Amy Reichert (@amyforsandiego) July 5, 2024

Recent news reports say that while blue-city mayors have pleaded for the state and federal governments to do something about Tijuana's shameless release of raw sewage onto San Diego's famous beaches, California's governor, Gavin Newsom, has resisted declaring an emergency as the sewage continues to pour in and close the beaches, claiming it's Joe Biden's job to do it and he won't ask for it. A Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, he is not.

But it's pretty outrageous, given Newsom's fondness for every other kind of federal aid as well as his claims to have turned the state 'green.'

'Green' in this case is algae growth from rotting sewage pollution fouling the once-pristine beaches. Up the coast, green activists have touted the proliferation of sea lions, one of which chased a woman this week, but even that may be the result of this policy of neglect, as generally speaking, sea lions go where garbage gathers -- followed by sharks.

Officials say the problem is being repaired incrementally from the Mexican side, but will "take time."

Maybe it will be repaired, but more likely, it will become the status quo. And besides the damage, there is the reputational damage to the city which will take much longer to recover. How long did it take for Lake Erie to recover its reputation after an industrial fire set the place on fire and turned its name into a synonym for industrial pollution? Quite a long time. Now that news of America's filthiest beaches is seeping into the national news, how long will it take for San Diego to recover its reputation, not to mention, its actual beaches?

In the meantime, San Diego's beaches, and not just Imperial Beach, but much farther north, are being fouled as if an industrial accident had happened. Exxon Valdez? It sounds so romantic compared to what San Diego's got -- sand strands covered with Mexican sewage in what had formerly been the beaches once lionized by the Beach Boys.

Happy Independence Day from the Democrats. One day, maybe there will be some independence from Mexican sewage.

Image: Roman Eugeniusz, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0