Union-Tribune Editorial

Sewage at border still called emergency
Speakers urge S.D. council to continue its declaration

August 10, 2000
By Leslie Wolf Branscomb

The major players in the border sewage debate converged on the San Diego City Council Committee on Natural Resources yesterday to urge the city to keep declaring a state of emergency at the border as it has done every two weeks for the past seven years.

Councilman George Stevens had questioned the need to continue doing so.

But he and the four council members on the committee were deluged with speakers, including Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Imperial Beach, and Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, who said the problem of Mexican sewage coming across the border has still not been solved.

Though the speakers differed on the best way to stem the tide of sewage that still occasionally flows into the Tijuana River Valley and onto the shores of Imperial Beach, all said the emergency declaration is necessary to prove to the federal government that the problem is ongoing and serious.

The International Wastewater Treatment Plant on the U.S. side of the border treats up to 25 million gallons a day of Mexican sewage.

Tijuana's own treatment plant handles up to 17 million gallons a day. But Tijuana's sewage output far exceeds that, and an estimated 13 million gallons of sewage each day receives no treatment, said the San Diego Metropolitan Wastewater Department.

In addition to hearing testimony in favor of the continued emergency declaration, committee members Juan Vargas, Judy McCarty, Valerie Stallings and Harry Mathis voted unanimously to support congressional legislation to move forward Bajagua, a private proposal to build a new for-profit sewage plant in Tijuana.

The legislation, introduced in November by Filner and Bilbray, calls for the United States' current border sewage treaty with Mexico to be renegotiated to allow treatment of Mexican sewage by a privately funded plant to be built in Mexico. The sewage treatment would be paid for, at least initially, with federal funds from the United States.

The legislation passed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, of which Filner is a member, last month.

If the full City Council signs the letter of support, it will be sent to the House International Relations Committee, which is still considering the legislation.

Though Bajagua is not specifically mentioned in the bill, the legislation is clearly meant to pave the way for the project, proposed by AguaClara, a group of Mexican and American investors.

They plan to provide both primary and secondary treatment of up to 50 million gallons a day of sewage emanating from Tijuana. They also plan to sell some of the treated effluent as reclaimed water for industrial use in the maquiladoras south of the border.

"The federal bureaucracies on both sides of the border have not encouraged this because this project, a public-private partnership, is thinking outside the box," Filner said.

The International Wastewater Treatment Plant at the border treats sewage to the advanced primary level, a lower standard than required by the federal Clean Water Act. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved construction of sewage treatment ponds in the Tijuana River Valley. They would treat the sewage to cleaner secondary standards before piping it offshore through an ocean outfall.

However, funding for the ponds has been held up by Congress, despite efforts by Bilbray to obtain money for the project. Filner and Bajagua representatives said that if the ponds are built they could make it more difficult to obtain money and backing for Bajagua.

Though critics of Bajagua have said Mexico does not want the project, Tijuana's director of international relations said yesterday that it does.

"The Mexican government of Baja California already has an agreement in place with Bajagua to get this project done," said Luz Maria Davila, referring to a development agreement signed three years ago between AguaClara and the Baja California secretary of public works.

Davila said the people of Tijuana oppose the U.S. sewage treatment ponds, which would be clearly visible from Tijuana's border neighborhood.

"When we realized that it was going to smell in the colonias right above that, believe me, there has been a big uproar," Davila said.

Bilbray said it was crucial for the San Diego City Council not only to continue to declare an emergency but also to support the legislation. Though Bilbray's hometown, Imperial Beach, bears the brunt of the sewage spills, he noted that thousands of San Diego residents living in the South Bay also use the beach and endanger their health by doing so.

Councilman Stevens, who is not on the committee, attended part of the meeting.

"To me, the state of emergency . . . really has exhausted itself," he said. "It has caused many people to have a negative attitude in terms of our relationship with Mexico."

Other committee members said they understood the need for continuing to declare an emergency.