City Talks, U.S. Acts

We all hear how hard it is to get the federal government to do anything, and that local governments can do things quicker and better.

Last year, after our local City Hall crowd did nothing but wring its hands, the federal government stepped in, built a sewage trap for the leaking Tijuana sewage that had closed beaches as far north as Coronado, and within a week after the city gave its permission to have this sewage treated in the city plant with federal reimbursement, the beach quarantine was lifted.

There is a new emergency now--massive leaks of Tijuana sewage down Smuggler’s Gulch--and the federal government has offered to solve this problem by building a pipeline to collect it and convey it, along with leaks down other canyons from Mexico, to the sewage trap.

With a collective leap, Councilman Uvaldo Martinez and Assemblyman Steve Peace, aided by the San Diego mayor and council, said that they couldn’t approve. Apparently piqued by the speed of federal action, they prefer to keep our health threat and business blight going.

Mr. Peace has two kinds of news for us. The good news is that the state has approved funds to open the Tijuana estuary, which will release a tremendous store of sewage now held behind it, into the ocean. This will extend the pollution-imposed quarantine from Imperial Beach north to Coronado.

The bad news is that Mr. Peace failed to get the $3-million appropriation from the state that is a requirement of the $30-million approved federal project to build a modern sewage plant along the border that will handle Tijuana’s sewage for the next 10 years without further additions.

Meanwhile, Mr. Peace is vocal in criticizing the federal government--presumably because it is willing to act while all he wants to do is talk.

GERARD DONOVAN Bonita