Speaker Vows State Help to End Sewage Problem

Flanked by 15 state and local officials, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown vowed Wednesday to put “the entire weight of the Assembly” behind a bill calling for state funds to deal with the decades-old problem of sewage flowing across the border from Mexico.

Brown said that the international problem requires the leadership of someone of his rank at the state level. He explained that his interest in the sewage issue was “a labor of love,” and not for personal political gain.

“I am clearly the appropriate jockey to carry this vehicle. We will put the entire weight of the Assembly behind this measure, and I expect the Senate as well, with the assistance of Mr. (Wadie) Deddeh (D-Bonita). . . and the other representatives from San Diego, will all be involved,” Brown said.

Brown and Deddeh were accompanied at a San Diego press conference by local Democratic and Republican legislators; Mayors Roger Hedgecock of San Diego, Bill Russell of Imperial Beach and Kyle Morgan of National City, and city council members from San Diego, Chula Vista and Imperial Beach.

Brown said his bill, introduced Tuesday and co-authored by San Diego legislators, would appropriate $15 million from the state general fund to build a pipeline and pumping station to send Mexican sewage back to Tijuana. It also would place a $150-million bond measure on the November, 1986, ballot for a sewage treatment plant in the United States if the problem persists.

The state bonds also would fund a study of toxic industrial sewage flowing from Mexicali, Mexico, into Calexico, Calif., via the New River. The bill calls for a state attorney general’s task force to investigate which U.S. companies operate in Mexicali and contribute to the problem.

Meanwhile, Brown said, the state will use $5.5 million approved last year to build a “catch basin” to capture renegade sewage spills at the border and funnel the effluent into the Point Loma sewage treatment plant. That system--to be used temporarily until the pipeline could be built--would replace the sewage holding pond built at the border last year.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) has suggested using federal money to fund a similar “defensive” pipeline.

Brown said that the state proposal “is such that if the federal government or the nation of Mexico steps in with any kind of complementary money, obviously we would not be required to spend the totality of the money.”

Tijuana produces about 20 million gallons of sewage daily and has no sewage treatment system. San Diego currently treats about 13 million gallons daily, and the rest is dumped, raw, into the ocean. Sewage spills are frequent along the hilly border, and the effluent runs downhill to San Diego.

Hedgecock said he was pleased that state officials finally were taking on the issue.

“We in San Diego have tried . . . for many, many years to bring to the attention of state and federal governments the need for coordinated action on this very important health hazard,” he said. “It’s very gratifying indeed to find the local representatives of the state . . . have been able to bring in the kind of statewide clout that Speaker Willie Brown represents.”

Chula Vista Councilman David Malcolm said, “It’s about time. Something is finally going to happen instead of tests and studies.”

A defensive sewage pipeline would have to be extended into Mexico or connected to a Mexican sewage system. Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) said the Mexican government has seen this plan and responded “positively” to it, though there has been no official response.