Panel Backs City in Sewage Dispute : Council Members Endorse Memo Protecting S.D. Interests

San Diego city officials Monday put the federal government on notice that if the city must continue to treat Mexican sewage, San Diego’s interests must be protected.

That means any U.S.-Mexico agreement to process Tijuana sewage should include, as a minimum, full reimbursement, economic sanctions against Mexico if it uses a 20-year-old “emergency” sewer line to full capacity and assurances that San Diego will not fail to meet federal Clean Water Act standards because it is handling the sewage, Scott Harvey, the city’s director of intergovernmental relations, said in a memorandum to the City Council.

This was endorsed Monday in a rapid 4-0 vote by the council’s Rules Committee, which adopted a resolution seeking protection for the city in any binational agreement.

The resolution also demanded that when the federal government spends $32 million to build a wastewater system to handle Mexican sewage, it should be a “defensive” one. Top city officials no longer wish to process Tijuana’s sewage but instead would like to use federal money to build a series of pipes that would catch the spillover sewage and shunt it back across the border.

The full council is expected to consider the resolution within a few weeks. Because the Rules Committee endorsement was so strong, Harvey said after the meeting that he would begin immediately discussing the city’s position with San Diego’s congressional delegation and with federal officials.

But if the council’s Rules Committee on Monday spelled out precise conditions under which San Diego would continue to process Mexican sewage, it also noted that the city had no desire to keep doing so.

At Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s urging, the committee amended its resolution to stress that “we are not at this time indicating in any way” that San Diego wishes to extend the life of the emergency pipeline.

That line, which carries Tijuana sewage from the border to the city’s Point Loma treatment plant at the rate of about 13 million gallons a day, was built in 1965 as a temporary measure and is supposed to go out of service Dec. 17. However, Harvey noted, federal officials are talking of extending its life to 1989.

The city’s stand on sewage is significant now because the U.S. State Department and top Mexican officials have been conducting intense negotiations on how best to handle Tijuana’s overflowing sewage. U.S. officials have been seeking some sort of sewage plant that would be jointly operated by Mexico and the United States. Mexican officials want a $46-million Inter-American Development Bank loan to build their own sewage plant.

The issue is an old one for the border cities of San Diego and Tijuana. For years, raw sewage from Tijuana’s overtaxed and defective wastewater system has spilled north across the border, washing down gullies in Goat Canyon and Smugglers Gulch, contaminating beaches and farmland in the South Bay.

The Rules Committee action Monday was prompted by a memo from Harvey that said U.S. officials have been frustrated by the recent negotiations in Mexico City.

“What has not been stated, however,” the memo continued, “is my fear that the State Department may sign an agreement with Mexico that will not adequately protect the city’s interests.

“In fact, my impression is that the IBWC (International Boundary and Water Commission, a federal agency handling the sewer issue) will ask the city to channel Mexican sewage via the emergency pipeline until at least 1989.”

Harvey recommended a minimum of five conditions for any extended agreement on the pipeline:

- The shortest time frame possible.

- “Full cost recovery” for the operation and maintenance costs of processing Tijuana sewage.

- Economic sanctions against Mexico if the pipeline is used at full capacity. (Its capacity is 15 million gallons. The flow of raw sewage through the line is at least 13 million and often 15 million gallons a day.)

- A clause that holds the city blameless for operation and maintenance of the pipeline.

- Assurance that San Diego’s treatment of Mexican sewage “will not be the reason we fail to meet various Clean Water Act rules, regulations or standards.”

Harvey conceded that the city could not force these conditions to be adopted in any binational agreement but hoped that by articulating them, San Diego and its congressional delegation might make the federal government aware of its concerns.

George High, the State Department’s director of Mexican affairs, said he was aware of San Diego’s concerns, although he had not heard the city ask for sanctions against Mexico.

In a related development, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), said Monday he wants the Inter-American Development Bank to delay the $46-million loan to Mexico until a promise is secured that it will conduct an environmental impact study on its proposed sewage treatment plant in Tijuana.

Wilson said he sent a letter to the heads of affected federal agencies asking them to make sure specific language is included in any development bank loan to Mexico.