Border Sewage Plans Questioned as Doubts Raised on Mexico Plant

For decades, millions of gallons of sewage have flowed across the border from Tijuana to San Diego, and for decades no one has done anything about it.

San Diego and Imperial Beach screamed about the sewage, but called it an international issue. The State of California said Mexican sewage was a federal problem, and Washington, D.C. said it was a Mexican problem.

Mexico promised to clean up the mess, but failed to do so.

Then last year, suddenly there was a flurry of activity among U.S. lawmakers, who decided it was time to stop the pollution of borderlands and beaches. Local, state and federal officials hammered out a plan to build a $60 million binational plant to treat Tijuana sewage in the United States, to where it naturally flowed downhill, and presented the plan to Mexico.

Congress approved $32 million and California allocated $5 million for the plant that the Americans believed--and still believe--was the best technical solution to the stubborn binational problem.

But that plant will not be built. Nor will the solution to the sewage problem be a binational one.

Instead, Mexico decided to build its own, simpler and low-cost sewage treatment system on Mexican soil with Mexican funds--without the help of the United States.

And the money originally earmarked for a binational plant likely will be spent, instead, on a back-up system in case the Mexican system fails.

Something finally is being done about the sewage problem, but U.S. technicians are skeptical that what is being done will work. Some local and federal sources ask rhetorically if the recent solution is a solution after all.

“We’re right back to where we were for 30 years,” said Richard Reavis, border coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency. “Mexico has said, ‘don’t worry, we’ll take care of it,’ and we said ‘hallelujah.’ I don’t know what makes this different.

“I feel strongly that a binational plant was the first step toward a permanent solution, and the only effective solution,” Reavis said.

U.S. officials who are satisfied with the Mexican plan acknowledge that it is not ideal, but say it was the only politically feasible solution. They insist the plan is a step forward, because it is the first time Mexico has agreed in writing to build any sewage treatment system.

Mexico signed the agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank this month, after the United States threatened to vote against an IDB loan for a Tijuana water works project. The loan agreement states that the bank may cut off funds for the water project if Mexico fails to meet its commitment to build and maintain the sewage facilities.

“Do you negotiate for a Mercedes Benz, or do you take the Chevrolet?” Chris Warden, a spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) said of the Mexican plan. “The Chevrolet will get us where we want to go.”

Adds Francisco Herrera, an aide to Sen. Pete Wilson (R-California), “There was no way, given the (budget-cutting) climate of Washington, and the time it takes to deal with Mexican and American officials, to insist on the binational plant as the only solution available.”

Some sources from both sides of the border, however, believe that there were ways. They say that tying the sewage facilities to the bank loan may have backfired, forcing Mexico to proceed quickly with its unilateral plan, rather than allowing time to negotiate a bilateral solution.

They criticize U.S. officials for being inflexible on the question of financing. They say the U.S. wanted Mexico to pay for half of the binational plant, and never put forth a solid proposal to make a binational plant financially attractive to Mexico.

“Mexico is going to invest money in its sewage plant that might have been invested in a binational plant,” said Reavis. “The United States will invest at least as much money as it would have (spent) on a binational plant on a second-best solution. Some day, down the line, someone is going to look at this and say, ‘What happened?’

“In my mind, if it had been handled differently, Mexico would have agreed to the binational plant,” he said, echoing the sentiments of others who declined to be identified.

Carlos Graizbord, a Mexican urban planner with the Center for Northern Border Studies in Tijuana, said the two countries are settling for an “adequate” but less than optimum sewage system, because officials from both sides never sat down together to design a joint plan. He said the U.S. simply presented its plan to Mexico.

“Imagine if I said, ‘Hey, I’m buying a Mercedes.’ You say, ‘Oh that’s great.’ And then I tell you you’re going to pay for half . . . because I am going to give you a ride to work,” he said.

Mexico responded by laying its own plan on the table.

Tijuana produces about 20 million gallons of sewage daily and has no sewage treatment facilities. Americans estimate that the volume of sewage will triple by 1995 because of population growth, increases in the numbers of homes connected to the sewer system, and expansion of city’s water works.

San Diego treats about 13 million gallons of Tijuana sewage daily at the Point Loma facility, but needs the capacity for San Diego sewage. The rest of Tijuana’s sewage is dumped raw into the ocean and often pollutes the Imperial Beach water front.

Unsewered waste and periodic sewage spills also have polluted the Tijuana River, which flows north into San Diego and west to Imperial Beach.

The United States proposed putting a $60 million binational plant just north of the border at Stewart’s Drain, across from Tijuana’s pumping station. The plant would have used sediment tanks to give the sewage a “primary” treatment, which then would be pumped back to Mexico.

U.S. technicians said their plan was preferable because it relied on gravity to collect the sewage and because they could oversee maintenance of the plant in the United States.

The plan was presented to Mexican officials last fall in Mexico City. According to Americans who attended the meeting, both sides agreed that plan was “the best technical solution.”

Mexicans who attended the meeting, however, said they agreed it was a good and feasible solution, but not necessarily the best. Mexican technicians were divided over its merits.

“The best solution from whose point of view?” asked a Mexican federal official who asked not to be identified. He said the sediment tanks would not have provided enough treatment to allow Mexico to reuse the water for agriculture.

The binational plant sounded expensive to build and operate, but Mexico was willing to consider it, he said. “We never said no.”

Neither did they say ‘yes,’ American officials add.

In January, U.S. Ambassador John Gavin announced that the United States was losing patience with Mexico on the sewage issue, and he threatened to oppose the IDB loan. Mexico then hastily called binational meetings for February in Tijuana and laid out its unilateral plan for a Mexican sewage treatment system.

“I feel Mexico was pushed to present its plan,” said a Mexican official. He said Mexico could not possibly negotiate with the bank by offering to build a binational sewage plant, when Mexico did not yet have an agreement with the United States for such a plant.

“It had to be an internal plan,” he said.

A U.S. source agreed:

“We played hardball, assuming Mexico would say, ‘OK, we’ll talk about a binational plant.’ Instead, we forced them into something else we really didn’t want to see.”

U.S. sources say that politically, Mexico could not have spent millions of dollars to build a sewage plant without creating jobs for Mexicans and using Mexican materials. In addition, they added, Mexico bristled at the image that it could not or would not handle its own sewage problem, and decided to solve the problem on its own.

“The U.S. negotiated from the moral position that it was Mexican sewage and Mexico should pay for half. From a moral standpoint that was realistic,” said Reavis. “But it should have become evident that for Mexico to pay half in the United States at U.S. prices was unacceptable to Mexico.

“If we had wanted very badly to assure that the plant was built, we needed to pull back in October . . . and ask Mexico what can you afford, what would you put into a plant in your own country. But there was a sense that the administration would not go for anything less than half,” he Reavis.

Other U.S. and Mexican sources agreed that the U.S. proposal was never pushed with much zeal. They said an international zone could have been established so that Mexican laborers could have worked on the plant or Mexico’s “half” of the cost of the plant could have been figured based on new facilities already built in Tijuana, such as its pump station and pipeline.

One U.S. source rejected the criticism, saying that although a formal proposal had not been made, many such suggestions were put forth.

“They weren’t willing to buy anything. They never officially commented on our proposal. They just came out with theirs.”

In Tijuana, Mexico proposed a detailed, two-pronged system to be carried out over five years. The first stage--which is what Mexico agreed to in the bank loan--calls for building a series of aeration ponds along the coast about 4 miles south of Tijuana.

Mexican officials believe their proposal is technically sound. The ponds will cost about $10 million and eventually will treat about 35 million gallons of sewage daily. After the waste waters are aerated, they are to be chlorinated and then reclaimed for agriculture, although Mexico still has no specific plans for reclamation.

“If there weren’t an international border, the plant would be on the other (U.S.) side,” said a Mexican federal official who asked not to be named. “But this solution is technically and politically acceptable for both sides. The thing to do is go ahead and pursue the coordination needed to make it work.”

U.S. technicians have said they doubt the Mexican plans will work for technical reasons. They say Mexico wants to build the ponds on unstable landfill, which could settle, crack the ponds, and send the sewage spewing into the ocean untreated. The sewage must be pumped to the plant over steep, rocky hills that are subject to slides during heavy rains.

They say Mexico does not plan to clean sludge out of the ponds for 12 years, which they believe is about 10 years too late, and that they worry whether the Mexican government will maintain the ponds in the long run. The federal government builds sewage facilities under the Ministry of Agriculture and Public Works, but then turns them over state governments to operate.

“The system Mexico is proposing is not going to be any better than the dedication of the government to provide adequate funds to maintain it,” said a U.S. source.

U.S. technicians point to problems with sewage ponds in Mexicali, Baja California, and Naco, Sonora. The aerators in Mexicali sewage ponds have never functioned properly, they say, and raw sewage flows north to Calexico through the New River.

In Naco, Sonora, pumps periodically break and the ponds spill over the border into a field of wells that provide drinking water to Bisbee, Arizona.

When asked why San Diegans should believe the Tijuana ponds will function and be maintained, the Mexican official answered: “They don’t have any alternative. They have to believe us.”

He went on to say that border pollution problems often take a long time to resolve, but that they eventually are resolved.

“Once a course of action has been defined, things move ahead,” he said.

Some U.S. officials insist the bank loan agreement will insure the success of the Mexican plan. They say Mexico did not have to sign the agreement, but did so willingly, and point optimistically to the fact that Mexico says it already has funded the western plant.

In addition, they are pushing for other agreements under the International Boundary and Water Commission and under a presidential accord on border environmental problems signed in La Paz, Baja California, in August 1983.

They hope that Mexico will agree to joint response to breaks or malfunctions in Tijuana’s sewage system, since in past emergencies it has taken Mexico a long time to make repairs.

Mexico’s sewage system proposal includes a second phase with plans for construction of another plant in eastern Tijuana at the juncture of the Alamar and Tijuana rivers. U.S. officials strongly oppose that plant, saying that they do not want any water--treated or untreated--flowing into the Tijuana River and on into the United States.

No agreement has been reached yet on that phase, but Mexico says it has a right to pour treated waste water into the river in Mexico.

U.S. technicians and politicians now are trying to agree among themselves on a back up system to be built in the United States. Congressman Hunter in Washington, D.C., and state Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in Sacramento have proposed two solutions, but officials say a decision should not be made until it is clear what Mexico will do with the eastern plant.

Hunter has proposed spending the $32 million appropriated for a binational plant on the back up system. Brown has proposed spending $15 million to build a pipeline and pump station to send Mexican sewage back to Tijuana and a $150 million bond measure to build a treatment plant if the problem persists.

As for the logic of spending all that money on a back up system, one federal official said, “What other choices do you have?”