SAN DIEGO — A 2022 monitoring effort conducted as part of a state realignment process that centered tribal and community priorities found the highest tissue contamination among sampled sites in San Diego Bay and highlighted gaps in data for PFAS and other contaminants.

The San Diego realignment, initiated in 2021 under the statewide SWAMP (Statewide Monitoring) realignment process, collected whole‑body and fillet tissue at coastal and freshwater locations identified by tribal and community advisory committee members. Anna Holder, chair of the California Water Quality Monitoring Council safety work group, presented the data report to the work group Oct. 29, 2025.

Why it matters: the project explicitly prioritized water bodies and species identified by tribes and community partners rather than traditional agency priorities, producing a dataset that better reflects subsistence and cultural consumption practices. That focus exposed areas where fish and shellfish tissue concentrations exceed commonly used thresholds and where insufficient PFAS data limit interpretation.

What the report found
- Among sampled locations, San Diego Bay had the most contaminant exceedances across the analytes measured, including mercury, PCBs and legacy organochlorine pesticides. Shellfish (California mussels and oysters) often showed lower concentrations than finfish at the same sites, making them comparatively safer in the measured suite, though shellfish safety must be evaluated against separate bacterial and viral closure data.
- At multiple freshwater sites, largemouth bass and some common sportfish exceeded thresholds that inform meal‑frequency guidance. At one Lower Sweetwater River sampling location, bluegill PFAS results exceeded the applied out‑of‑state “do not eat” threshold by a factor of about seven, the report noted.
- The advisory committee requested whole‑body analyses because many subsistence consumers eat whole fish or organ meats; the program therefore prioritized whole‑body samples in several species to better represent local diets.

Funding, PFAS and next steps
State and regional staff said budget reductions forced a pause in the broader statewide monitoring plan. “Our budget has been cut for the program. We no longer have the funds to monitor,” Holder told the work group. The state has, however, identified archived samples for targeted PFAS analysis and obtained funding to analyze a subset; staff said they expect results from the PFAS “archive” work in mid to late 2026.

Staff recommended resampling sites and expanding PFAS testing before translating the report into formal consumption guidance. The work group emphasized that OEHHA fish consumption advisories remain the official source for public health guidance and that these monitoring results are informational until additional data and formal threshold (ATL) guidance for PFAS are available.

What officials said
Anna Holder, chair, California Water Quality Monitoring Council safety work group: “We really wanted to build stronger relationships with tribes and communities, to inform what we do for our program.”
Wes (OEHHA): OEHHA is developing PFAS advisory tissue levels but timelines remain uncertain; staff said a few PFAS ATLs may be available by mid‑to‑late 2026.

Next steps and data access
The presenter said the San Diego region will share the cruise report and data products and that the work group will continue conversations about how to communicate findings to communities without creating confusion. Staff urged integrating tissue data with other public health data (bacterial closures for shellfish, algal‑toxins, etc.) when producing public messaging. Archived PFAS results, when available, will be posted to the statewide data repository and announced to the work group.