Picture this: It’s the Fourth of July in San Diego. You pack up the cooler, load the kids in the car, and head for the beach only to see yellow tape, “Contaminated Water” signs, and lifeguards telling you to stay out.

This is reality for San Diegans this week. From La Jolla to Cardiff, Del Mar, Mission Bay, and Coronado, our beaches are under contamination advisories or closed entirely thanks to dangerous bacteria levels. Some spots are shut down because raw sewage is literally flowing into the ocean.

Locals are sick of it — literally. Ask any surfer in Imperial Beach who’s caught a wave near the Tijuana River plume and ended up with a stomach bug. Ask small business owners who lose thousands every holiday weekend when the crowds stay home. Ask families who have to tell their kids, “No, we can’t swim today — the water will make you sick.”

So where’s Gavin Newsom?

This sewage crisis isn’t new. We’ve known for decades that cross-border pollution is poisoning our coast. Neighborhoods and environmental groups have pleaded with Sacramento to fix the problem. We need modern infrastructure, better cross-border collaboration, real funding, and accountability for polluters.

But year after year, we get empty promises and news conferences and the water stays filthy.

Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre put it bluntly last month: “This is an environmental injustice. Our residents deserve clean water just like everyone else.” She’s right.

This isn’t just bad luck or bad weather. It’s bad leadership.

While Newsom’s busy pitching himself as a national climate hero, families from San Ysidro to Coronado can’t even enjoy their own backyard beaches.

It’s the Fourth of July, the one holiday we should be able to celebrate with sand between our toes and kids splashing in the surf. Instead, we get closed beaches and warnings to stay out of the water.

Enough is enough. Californians shouldn’t have to wonder if the ocean will make them sick. We shouldn’t have to fight for safe, clean water. And we shouldn’t have to beg our own governor to do his job.

The people of San Diego deserve better, and they deserve it now.