Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 10/08/2009 8:59:07 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
In a striking change of direction, the California Coastal Commission Wednesday voted 8-4 to give San Diego its third exemption from pollution standards set by the federal Clean Water Act.
Just two months ago, commissioners overwhelmingly to deny the five-year waiver from “secondary” treatment levels at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant. The facility processes sewage from more than 2.2 million people in and outside of the city's limits.
The commission's reversal saves San Diego from having to retrofit the facility at a price tag of up to $1.5 billion. The last major step is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has already granted a preliminary waiver.
San Diego is the only city in California that hasn't committed to meet the secondary treatment level for discharges to the ocean.
Despite voting for the exemption Wednesday night, Oceanside Councilwoman Esther Sanchez said, “I am embarrassed for the region that we do have the only waiver.”
During the meeting at Oceanside City Hall, she said it made the most sense to give San Diego time to find ways to divert more wastewater from the Point Loma facility, treat it more thoroughly and then reuse it. She added a clause in the commission's approval that will force the city to return to the panel in about two years and report on its progress.
Some environmentalists saw Sanchez as a pivotal player because elected officials often are given deference on issues that affect their home region. Sanchez joined the commission after the August waiver vote.
San Diego County's other representative on the panel, developer Pat Kruer of Rancho Santa Fe, also backed the exemption. He was the lone supporter when the commission cast its vote two months ago.
This time around, San Diego didn't offer any substantive changes to its waiver application. There was speculation that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supports another exemption, had pressed the commission to override itself.
“The politics in the last 60 days changed the vote because there was absolutely no new information,” said Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, a environmental group in Santa Monica that opposed the waiver. “It's not like all of the sudden the marine environment got cleaned up.”
Marco Gonzalez, a lawyer for the Surfrider Foundation, praised the commission's latest move and attributed it to factors such as a city-sponsored study about how to increase wastewater recycling for a variety of uses, including irrigation and tap water. His group, along with San Diego Coastkeeper, called for the analysis as a more effective way to conserve water.
An agreement for the study was in place before commissioners first heard the waiver request in August, but Gonzalez said it wasn't pushed as prominently then as it was during recent weeks.
At the initial meeting, “We all pretty much thought (the application) would skate through,” Gonzalez said. “In this case, we lobbied aggressively and the city lobbied aggressively.”
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said a more formal and detailed presentation by city officials helped change commissioners' minds, even though several of them voiced concern about what they saw as a lack of accountability from Sanders.
“The city hasn't set any goals or milestones,” said Commissioner Sara Wan of Malibu. “There is no commitment here to actually implement the (wastewater) recycling.”
Sanders agreed to tell the commission about the study's findings. But he refused to go further, saying he could not bind the city to following policy recommendations that he hadn't seen.
“I feel very good about it,” Sanders said. “It's the most important issue we have going right now — saving $1.5 billion for the ratepayers.”
MY GOD!...A sense of sanity somewhere in California?...
START DRILLING!
Ping
I live on the Texas Gulf Coast and the drilling rigs don’t bother us at all!
This really confuses me, San Diego should clean its waste water to a higher standard before it dumps it into the Pacific ocean to mix with raw sewage dumped by Mexico? Why not just dump it further away from shore? Wouldn’t that fix the problem? California is a funny place. I have to wonder what percentage of this water actually belongs to Arizona.
The only reason California exists is to keep the water from flooding Arizona.
Wasn’t Gray Davis recalled from office for allowing dumping of toxins into SF bay?
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