CA: S.D. hearing focuses on coastal pollution

San Diego Union -Tribune ^ | 8/20/05 | Leslie Wolf Branscomb

[NormsRevenge]

Two members of the state Assembly's Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing yesterday in San Diego to address what the state can do to protect coastal waters from being polluted by sewage from Mexico.

But the answer appeared to be that in this time of tight finances, the best the state can do is keep pressuring the federal government for funding for sewage treatment.

State Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña called the hearing because of her concerns about the tentative plan to award a no-bid contract to a private company called Bajagua, which is proposing to build a sewage treatment plant in Tijuana.

Bajagua is the "preferred alternative" of the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission, which is under a federal court order to improve the treatment of sewage that is currently taking place at the border.

The proposed facility would treat Mexican sewage to the standard required by U.S. environmental laws, then pump it to the United States for discharge into the ocean off Imperial Beach.

Two previous plans to build plants to treat the sewage to the stringent secondary treatment level required by the government didn't come to fruition – once because of lawsuits, the other time because Congress didn't provide funding. Bajagua proposes to pay for construction of the treatment plant, then sell recycled wastewater for profit. Bajagua would eventually be repaid by future appropriations from Congress.

At a public meeting Monday in Imperial Beach, the IBWC presented the environmental-impact statement it has prepared on the project. Saldaña, a critic of the Bajagua project, vowed to have the natural resources committee, of which she is a member, look into the matter.

Yesterday's hearing included Saldaña and the committee's chair, Assemblywoman Lori Hancock from Berkeley. The other seven members of the committee were not present.

Several times the assemblywomen asked the invited speakers what the state could do about Mexican sewage polluting U.S. border areas, and whether it was possible to pick a different sewage treatment project.

Most of the speakers said that because of the international implications, it's considered the federal government's responsibility.

The IBWC is under court order to pick a project by Oct. 1, award a contract by Dec. 19, and have secondary treatment in place by Sept. 30, 2008.

Imperial Beach City Councilwoman Mayda Winter said, however, that her city will probably ask the U.S. State Department to extend the deadlines so other alternatives may be considered.

Winter said it could take many years to get through the process of building the facility in Mexico. "If this is not going to happen, we need to move forward on another plan," she said.

Oscar Romo, of the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, said the Bajagua project has not been presented to a binational commission on public health and would have to be approved by the Mexican government's watershed council. A binational advisory board that was supposed to be created to oversee the project hasn't been formed, he said.

"This project is perceived (in Mexico) as another forced deal," Romo said.

But Surfrider Foundation attorney Marco Gonzalez said that having the United States pay for construction and treatment of Mexican sewage should be considered "a gift" to Mexico.

Hancock ended the hearing by saying, "I hope that we will be able to move forward as quickly as possible . . . and that the state plays as much of an advocacy role as it can."

"I'd like to think optimistically, that we'll return to a time when there is more funding," Saldaña said. "If we can find better ways to cooperate on how to solve these environmental problems, we can lead the way."

[EagleUSA]

"to address what the state can do to protect coastal waters from being polluted by sewage from Mexico..."
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Now there is a real knee slapper. With what has been pouring ACROSS OUR BORDERS for decades, and these weenies get interested in the water??? Just freakin' amazing...

[seastay]

maybe now they can build that fence down there that never seems to get built over environmentalism concerns, as well, now that sewage has become an environmental problem; all that foot traffic of the constant wave of illegal immigrants coming across the border on the coastline and no public rest rooms ;cant be good to the ecosystem either...

yet then again following tradition of bending backwards not to help the citizens of California, but only of Mexico, , they may start taxes us to put in public rest rooms on these paths as well, instead of the fence.