Brown Spurs Panel’s OK of $176-Million Sewage Cleanup Plan

Minutes after a legislative committee approved his $176-million plan for cleaning up sewage and toxic pollutants along the Mexican border, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown was being congratulated by colleagues at a Capitol-area restaurant frequented by the state government’s power elite.

“It was that farmer,” said the flamboyant Democratic leader of the state Assembly. “That farmer was the best thing we had. He was great.”

At the edge of the cocktail bar a few feet away sat San Diego farmer-rancher Jim Martin, admittedly proud he had been so well-received on his first trip to the state Capitol.

But, too, as Martin had testified before the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials moments earlier, he was still a little “mad.”

The devastation reaped by millions of gallons of sewage from Mexico that has flowed onto his land the last few years has transformed Martin’s once-thriving 5,000-acre strawberry farm into one where sod, “something people don’t eat,” is now the major crop.

Martin was mad, too, that the sewage crisis had driven many of his neighbors into bankruptcy and at least one to suicide.

“Now, finally, somebody is going to do something about it,” Martin said.

For all the attention the problems have received in San Diego the last few years, the daily flow of Mexican sewage into the United States had generally been considered a Southern California issue in the capital.

By Thursday, however, Brown, Martin and a new legislative report edited by Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) had transformed border sewage into a major topic of discussion and concern.

So compelling was Martin’s testimony before the committee that Brown introduced him--and the border sewage issue--to the full Assembly the following day, weeks ahead of the normal schedule for a bill that had just cleared its first committee hurdle.

Brown made the introduction during a point in the legislative agenda when members normally introduce relatives, visiting local officials and Girl Scout troops from their districts. Except for polite applause that follows each introduction, it appears most of the time that legislators--mingling, chatting and walking about--are not even listening.

But Brown, who rarely makes such introductions himself, told the hushed chambers Thursday that Martin’s committee testimony had been “one of those rare instances” when a private citizen “speaking directly from the heart” had touched the legislative conscience.

“I thought you all should meet Jim Martin, an unusual citizen and a man who is suffering enormously,” Brown said.

By week’s end, it appeared that it was a stroke of political genius that the San Diego legislative delegation had talked Brown (D-San Francisco) into carrying the bill to clean up sewage and toxic materials along the international border.

“It’s critical,” Peace said of Brown’s involvement. “I could scream from the rafters that it is a statewide problem, but I would not have the same credibility.”

Some skeptics who earlier feared that Gov. George Deukmejian might eventually veto Brown’s bill were saying after the committee meeting that the fiscally conservative Republican governor might have no political choice but to go along.

So far, Deukmejian’s only public statement about it was at a Sacramento press conference last month, where he said he considered it “a little premature” to commit a large sum of state money for “an international question involving the governments of Mexico and the United States.”

But Assistant Press Secretary Kevin Brett noted Friday that Deukmejian’s statement at the March 12 press conference stopped short of outright opposition.

While Deukmejian has not elaborated on the issue since that press conference, Brett said the governor will certainly take into consideration what the United States and Mexico are doing at the time, and the state’s overall bond debt, should Brown’s bill pass the Legislature.

Brown, Peace and several other legislators are going to Washington next week to discuss border pollution, and other issues, with federal officials.

Peace said he never viewed Deukmejian’s comments last month as presaging a gubernatorial veto.

“I think it is exactly the type of statement you would expect from a governor . . . who has not had an opportunity to study an issue,” Peace said.

Peace said the outcome of recent talks about border sewage in Mexico City between United States and Mexican officials were still hazy when the governor made his statement last month.

By the time a bill reaches Deukmejian’s desk, Peace added, it might also be known whether Congress will appropriate the remaining $28 million of federal money it authorized for border sewage problems last year and what, if anything, federal officials would do about the toxic contaminants that Mexicali industries are dumping into the New River in Imperial County.

Peace said Deukmejian would likely suffer serious political damage in San Diego, which was a key to 1982 victories in both the primary and general election, were he to veto the border cleanup package after Democratic leader Brown had championed it.

“I just think the question (at the March press conference) was premature,” Peace said.

The Administration’s position on Brown’s bill may also become clearer when the state Water Resources Control Board completes its analysis of the measure.

A spokesman for the board said that, while some details are yet to be worked out, Brown’s comprehensive package “is generally congruent” with what local and state water officials would like to see done to alleviate the border sewage crisis. But “obviously we are not going in a different direction than the governor,” Water Resources Control Board spokesman Evan Nossoff added.

Brown’s bill cleared the Environmental Safety Committee by a 12-0 vote, with two Republicans and one Democrat choosing not to vote.

It must now be considered by the Assembly Committee on Public Investments, Finance and Bonded Indebtedness, chaired by Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove).

The bill would set a 1986 statewide election asking voters to authorize the sale of $150 million in bonds for border cleanup projects.

The bill, which the entire San Diego legislative delegation is co-sponsoring, would also appropriate $21.5 million for a flow collection system to pump sewage into a planned waste water reclamation project planned in Mexico; $500,000 for studies to identify the source of contaminants in the New River, and $5 million for unforeseen public health emergencies.

It also creates an authority that could use the bond money to construct and operate a primary sewage treatment facility on the border later, if needed.

Brown and several state, local and federal officials who addressed the committee Wednesday night said there is little doubt that future facilities will be needed. A permanent border sewage solution would cost $650 million, Brown estimated.

While the federal government and Mexico should take the lead in solving the problem, Brown said, California cannot afford to let the damage to beaches, and threat of a public health crisis, continue unabated.

The federal government has failed to deal with the decades-old problem and Mexico, “a Third-World nation that is heavily in debt . . . is absolutely incapable of addressing the issue,” Brown told the committee.

Tijuana and Mexicali, both growing Mexican border towns, have inadequate or nonexistent sewage treatment facilities for most of their populated areas.

Since the mid-1960s, much of the sewage from Tijuana has been treated in the City of San Diego’s municipal treatment system. Officials estimate that 15 million gallons of Mexican sewage flow daily into San Diego’s system, and an additional 30 million gallons of untreated or inadequately treated sewage pollutes border-area beaches, rivers, farms and canyons in San Diego and Imperial counties.

Brown’s 90-minute multimedia presentation before the committee was powerful and impressive, legislative observers agreed. It included a slide show; large charts, maps and photographs on easels; bound reference materials, and a jar of murky black liquid said to have been taken from the Tijuana River several days ago.

One committee member, getting in a bit of good-natured chiding, asked Brown during the committee hearing if he could advise other legislators how they could “arrange a presentation like this for our bills?”

And, as he left the hearing room, a lobbyist joked with Brown about the length of the presentation, saying the legislative process would grind to a halt if Brown carried many more bills.

The Democratic leader and a long line of witnesses from San Diego and Imperial counties characterized the sewage crisis as a serious threat to public health, tourism, the economy and the environment.

The following day the Assembly Select Committee on International Water Treatment and Reclamation, chaired by Peace, would reiterate those statements.

California’s southernmost beaches have been quarantined for hundreds of days each year since 1981, the report noted, warning that the problem “could be devastating to San Diego’s tourist trade in general.”

Growth and increased water supplies in Mexico will make the problem even worse, said the report.

“Tragedy under the continuing circumstances is inevitable,” it said.