Environment: Firm Plans Border Treatment Facility
A San Diego company looking to treat Mexican sewage before it ends up on local beaches expects to get a major boost this month.
The Bajagua Project, LLC hopes to build a facility providing primary and secondary treatment for Mexican sewage. The plant would be capable of handling about 75 million gallons of effluent a day, said Dave Schlesinger, director of operations for Bajagua.
The facility, which has already garnered the support of Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, may gain additional backing in the next few weeks. Schlesinger will promote the project before a committee of the San Diego City Council on Oct. 17, as well as before the Regional Water Quality Control Board on Oct. 24.
Also, Bajagua has filed an amicus brief with the court over a lawsuit filed over the International Wastewater Treatment Plant at the Mexican border. Schlesinger said he hopes the judge will recognize the Bajagua project as the potential solution to the treatment plant’s woes.
The problems at the treatment plant highlight the need for Bajagua. The problem is that before the facility being built, untreated sewage from the Tijuana River had been entering the United States for about 70 years.
The treatment plant, which was supposed to solve the problem, has not been able to handle the large amount of sewage. The plant had been designed under a binational treaty negotiated long before the North American Free Trade Agreement, Schlesinger said.
“The original treaty had a smaller project being built in the United States. And that was pre-NAFTA. And of course, nobody recognized at the time the huge impact that NAFTA would have on the demographics, the population growth of Tijuana, the maquiladoras, and all the wastewater that comes with it,” he said.
As a result, untreated wastewater still ends up in Imperial Beach. The lawsuit, filed by Surfrider Foundation, alleges the plant has operated in violation of its permit ever since it opened, Schlesinger said.
Bajagua would solve the problem by diverting that sewage to a privately owned facility on the Mexican side of the border. The privately financed facility would recoup its investment through a fee-for-services contract with the U.S. government, Schlesinger said.
Built-In Difficulties
Schlesinger conceded there would be some difficulties in placing a treatment plant on the other side of the border. Project supporters would have to work with bureaucracies from both countries, he said.
Also, the original 1990 treaty would have to be renegotiated in order to build the new facility. However, since the exisitng plant has been so inadequate, the treaty would probably have to be renegotiated anyway , Bajagua or no Bajagua, Schlesinger said.
The proposal has already garnered support from several officials, including Filner, who last year co-sponsored a bill with then-Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-San Diego, in support of the project. HR-3378, which authorized those negotiations to begin, passed last November, Schlesinger said.
Political Support
Don Stanziano, a spokesman for Filner, confirmed the congressman’s ongoing support for the project.
“It allows for an anticipated increase in the amount of sewage that needs to be treated as the population of Tijuana continues to grow. There have been alternative solutions bantered about that don’t meet future needs. From the congressman’s perspective, this takes a bigger, longer view of the problem,” he said.
Stanziano also conceded the difficulties of such a binational project, since it would involve two different sets of bureaucracies, he said.
Imperial Beach City Manager Barry Johnson does not support the Bajagua proposal. The treaty isn’t the only difficulty, he said.
There are questions as to the legality of a private American company operating a public utility in Mexico, as well as whether there is any support for the project in Mexico, Johnson said.
Johnson added that the preferred alternative, already in the design phase, is a series of ponds adjacent to the treatment plant at the border. These ponds would provide the necessary secondary treatment for the facility, he said.
