Lawsuit over sewage treatment resolved
Leslie Wolf Branscomb.
Dec 7, 2004. pg. B.2

A long-running lawsuit over sewage treatment at the U.S.-Mexican border has finally been resolved.
A federal judge in San Diego signed an order yesterday requiring the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission to bring its border sewage treatment plant up to secondary treatment standards within four years.
U.S. District Judge Barry Moskowitz thanked the lawyers for their willingness to reach a compromise. "I think this is outstanding," Moskowitz said. "This is absolutely in the public's interest to get this done."

The IBWC owns the International Wastewater Treatment Plant in the Tijuana River Valley, which treats sewage that flows northward across the border via the river. The sewage is treated to the advanced primary level and has been piped into the ocean off Imperial Beach through an underwater outfall since early 1999.

State and federal law requires sewage to be treated to a cleaner secondary standard, but upgrades have been blocked for years because of lawsuits, lack of funding and political power struggles.

The state Regional Water Quality Control Board could have revoked the IBWC's permit to discharge into the ocean. But closing the plant would have resulted in even more untreated sewage flowing into the river and reaching the ocean through the Tijuana River Estuary.

So the state board sued the IBWC in 2001 to try to force it to comply with clean water laws.

Even with the border sewage treatment plant operating, sewage continues to taint the beaches surrounding the estuary. Rainfall makes the situation worse, because the amount of sewage-tainted water flowing through the river exceeds the plant's maximum capacity of 25 million gallons a day.

The beaches from the border up to the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge have been closed by the county Department of Environmental Health since Oct. 17. Yesterday the county extended the closure to Coronado.
Yesterday's order requires the IBWC to award a contract for construction of the secondary treatment plant by Dec. 19, 2005, and begin treatment by Sept. 30, 2008. Judge Moskowitz will retain jurisdiction to enforce the order.

The last time the state and the IBWC nearly resolved the case, more than a year ago, Moskowitz
refused to approve the agreement.

This agreement differs primarily because there is no "force majeure" clause, which would have allowed the IBWC, under the the terms of the previous agreement, to not comply due to any circumstances beyond its control.

IBWC Commissioner Arturo Q. Duran issued a statement yesterday, saying: "I am excited about this new phase and I look forward to working diplomatically with our partners in Mexico to bring increased results and protect human health and the environment for the people living in the San Diego-Tijuana border region."

The backers of Bajagua, a private proposal to build a for-profit sewage treatment plant in Tijuana, are hoping to be selected for the project.

"We've been in contact regularly with the IBWC, trying to push this thing along," said Bajagua spokesman Craig Benedetto. "We knew everybody was frustrated that there has not been action on this.

"In our minds, the most expedient way to get it done is Bajagua," he said. "Now that his has been resolved, we believe everything will move forward."

Benedetto said the lawsuit resolution was helped along by the reauthorization of a federal bill to provide funding for the border sewage project.

The legislation by Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, and former Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Imperial Beach, was first passed in 2000 and signed by President Clinton in his final days in office.

It expired, but was recently reauthorized by Congress, and signed into law by President Bush on Tuesday.