SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Scientists from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have unveiled a tool that forecasts sewage-contamination levels at beaches in south San Diego County.

It’s called the Pathogen Forecast Model hosted by the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System at Scripps.

The Pathogen Forecast Model website provides detailed estimates shoreline sewage concentrations and the likelihood of swimmers getting sick for Playas Tijuana, Imperial Beach, Silver Strand State Park, and Coronado.

The aim, according to researchers, is to enable families to make informed decisions about whether to take their kids to the beach.   

“The Pathogen Forecast Model has considerable skill in predicting five days into the future the beach water quality measurements made by San Diego County from Imperial Beach to Coronado,” said Scripps oceanographer Falk Feddersen. “Of course, just like with weather forecasts, the model has error. It is still experimental.”  

The model was developed with funding from the state of California.

According to Feddersen, the tool is the first of its kind in the nation that responds to a longstanding problem of raw sewage from Mexico circulating in the coastal ocean on both sides of the border.

The website pfmweb.ucsd.edu has real-time graphics that color code the water and beaches.

“I don’t think I would go into the water when it’s into the red,” Feddersen said. “The ultimate goal is information to have better information, conventionalized information.”

Feddersen also states the website and information provided to the public takes into account currents, tides and the wind as well as the county’s daily water testing results.

“You look on the county’s website you see this beach is under advisory, this beach is not under advisory stuff like that what you can’t see is what’s going to happen five days out and what the weekend will look like.”

For decades, sewage flows parallel to the coast have led to numerous beach closures.

In the city of Imperial Beach, its southern beaches, the ones closest to the border and the Tijuana River mouth where millions of gallons of raw sewage flow into the ocean on a daily basis, the coastline has been off limits to the public for more than 1,000 consecutive days.