Pond Dug to Contain Mexican Sewage Spills Being Dismantled

An emergency holding pond capable of daily capturing 2 million gallons of raw sewage spilling across the border from Mexico has been closed by the International Boundary and Water Commission.

The 13-acre pond was built outside of San Ysidro in February, 1984, to temporarily solve the problems created by millions of gallons of sewage pouring from Tijuana’s broken sewage lines across the border and onto the farmland and beaches of the South Bay.

It was supposed to have remained in operation until the middle of May, when construction on new Mexican sewage facilities is to be completed and they are put into operation, said Bob Ybarra, spokesman for the commission. But the pond was dismantled early because of pressure from the state Water Quality Control Board to construct a fence around it to keep people away from the sewage.

“On March 4, our board decided the pond needed fencing to prevent the public coming in,” said Mike McCann, a senior engineer for the water quality panel. “But the IBWC asked for an extension until July 1. When the board denied the request and called for an enforcement hearing, the IBWC decided to tear the pond down. It’s been closed since April 15.”

Because no plans have been made to handle spilled sewage in the event of future overflow, South Bay communities remain unprotected, McCann said. Overflow sewage “will now go into Stewart’s Drain and the Tijuana River,” he said.

But Ybarra contends that the new Mexican sewage facilities will be in operation by the middle of May, and that a large sewage spill is unlikely before then. “There is always that possibility” that the existing Mexican sewage facilities will overflow, he said, “but it’s been since the middle of February that the pond was last used. There is not that much of a problem with the old Mexican facility.”

The emergency pond held the overflow effluent until nightfall, when it was pumped to San Diego’s Metropolitan Sewerage System plant on Point Loma for treatment. But bulldozers went to work on the pond last week and are expected to complete the project this week. Last Friday, 44 truckloads containing a total of 5,000 cubic yards of sewage sludge were hauled from the pond to the county’s landfill at Otay Mesa.

“We were told we had to have some way of restricting access to the public, to put up a fence around the pond,” Ybarra said. “But that would be at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of between $30,000 and $60,000, which we felt would not be justified. The operation date (of the Mexican pumping plant) was advanced, so it was only for a matter of weeks.”

Bob Hudson, district affairs director for Supervisor Brian Billbray, said Billbray has been encouraging interim measures along the border to prevent sewage overflow. In fact, Hudson said, he was in the process of writing to the IBWC to recommend that the pond be kept in place until it is certain that the Mexican pumping plant works.

“Our feeling was to keep the pond there until we determine it is not needed,” Hudson said. “I was preparing this letter, when on a regular round of the sewage spill areas, lo and behold, there were the bulldozers.

“They should have kept it around,” he said. “Now, if we get a break like we have in the past, we’ll face extensive sewer contamination.”