EPA Funds to Rechannel Sewage Spills at Border

A $5-million federal grant to design a system to keep Tijuana sewage from polluting property on the U.S. side of the border was announced Thursday.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials in San Francisco said the money has been allotted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to plan and design a “protective system” of pumps and pipelines to return Mexican sewage spills flowing into the United States back to the Tijuana sewage system.

Frank Covington, director of the EPA’s regional water management division, said the $5 million will go for planning, design and environmental analysis of the defensive system. The $32-million federal project will combine with a $5-million state program now under way. The system will capture Tijuana sewage spills that cross the border and pollute U.S. agricultural land and the Tijuana River, which flows from Mexico into the United States.

Ladin Delaney, executive officer of the state Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Diego, called the project “an encouraging first step in resolving the sewage pollution problems along the international border” between San Diego and Tijuana.

Delaney said that the only permanent solution to the sewage problem would be construction of a massive sewage treatment plant at the international border--estimated to cost $450 million to $500 million--with a long, deep ocean outfall to dispose of the treated effluent. A U.S.-Mexico pact for construction of the border treatment plant was signed two years ago, but Mexican officials later withdrew from the agreement, announcing that they would build sewage treatment facilities on the Mexican side of the border.

“We are glad to see the federal government get involved in this international problem,” Delaney said. He added that, while the project might protect the border area from pollution, it would not resolve the problems caused by the dumping of millions of gallons of raw sewage from Tijuana into the Pacific Ocean.

Covington agreed that the $32-million “defensive system” to be designed by the Corps of Engineers would do nothing to handle the estimated 30 million gallons of sewage now being generated daily in the fast-growing Mexican border city.

The state and federal “defensive systems” will do little more than pump the sewage overflows back into a Tijuana sewage canal that runs from the city to the coast about 4.5 miles south of the border--where the untreated sewage is dumped into the ocean. Currently, breakdowns in the Tijuana sewage pumping system or in the pipes carrying the untreated sewage to the coast result in flows of raw sewage across the border into the United States at Goat Canyon, Smugglers Gulch, Canyon del Sol, Stewart’s Gulch and other points.

A state project has trapped some of the spills in holding ponds, where the effluent is pumped back to the Mexican pumping plant or into the San Diego Metropolitan Sewage Treatment System for processing at the Point Loma plant.

Before construction of the holding ponds, periodic sewage spills into the United States polluted the Tijuana River Valley and flowed into the ocean, causing closure of beaches in Imperial Beach and as far north as Coronado.

EPA Administrator Lee M. Thomas praised the work of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-San Diego) in obtaining the federal funds for the border sewage project. Hunter said Thursday that he expects the planning phase to take about two years, during which he will work to obtain the remaining $27 million for construction of the pumping system.

Covington said that, despite the country’s economic problems, the Mexican government is proceeding with construction of a 17-million-gallon-a-day sewage processing plant along the coast. Mexico also plans to build another 17-million-gallon-a-day plant at the same site and to build more sewage treatment facilities inland.