City, EPA Accord Near in Dispute Over Sewage

Representatives from the city, state, Environmental Protection Agency and Sierra Club met in closed session Tuesday but failed to agree on a proposed multibillion-dollar upgrade of San Diego’s sewage-treatment system.

However, with the exception of the Sierra Club, an intervenor in the case, the other sides apparently feel a settlement is near.

“It’s not 100% there, but it’s almost there,” Mayor Maureen O’Connor said.

“We’re still working on the details; we have just a few kinks to work out,” said an attorney close to the case, who asked not to be identified. “Most of those kinks involve the Sierra Club.”

Recently, attorneys in the case agreed on the key elements of what is now an 18-month battle between the EPA and the city over upgrading San Diego’s sewage-treatment system. The city is being asked to complete a $2.6-billion to $2.8-billion overhaul of the system by December, 2003, sources close to the negotiations said.

If ratified by the City Council and high-level officials in the U.S. Department of Justice, the EPA and the state Regional Water Quality Control Board, the agreement would commit San Diego to solving its longstanding violation of the federal Clean Water Act by building the most costly public-works project in the city’s history.

Barbara Bamberger, conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club, said an agreement among those parties might not be enough to ward off a challenge by her group in court.

“If we don’t agree with the settlement between the city and the EPA, we as intervenors have the right to go to trial, and at this point, it’s very possible,” said Bamberger, whose group petitioned the court to get into the negotiations. “We are going to take this to the end, whatever the end is.”

Bamberger said the Sierra Club, as intervenor, is party to “whatever decisions are made, and we can agree or disagree with the settlement.”

She said the key area of disagreement involves water conservation.

“We want a strong effluent cap, and the city wants a floating cap, meaning that as you increase capacity, you can increase the cap,” Bamberger said. “Well, hey, that’s no cap at all. Either we’re going to get water conservation through an effluent cap, or we’ll get it through a remedial process, such as penalties and fees, which is the next step.

“And if we don’t get those--and we haven’t gotten them yet--we’ll go to trial.”