City Switches Stance on Sewage Plant Funds : Environment: The council changes its tune to ‘What a Difference a Day Makes’ as it votes to again fund planning for controversial, multibillion-dollar project.

Just a day after refusing to authorize further planning of the city’s mammoth new sewage treatment system, the San Diego City Council reversed itself Tuesday and agreed to reconsider approving an $11.8-million consultant’s contract to allow the project to proceed.

The 7-0 vote, with Councilmen Bruce Henderson and Bob Filner absent, followed a closed-door review of the city’s legal battle with three state and federal agencies over San Diego’s failure to upgrade its sewage treatment system as required by the federal Clean Water Act, said Mayor Maureen O’Connor.

Monday’s 5-4 vote, which ordered a delay in planning of the $2.6-billion to $2.8-billion sewer project while city planners developed an aggressive water conservation program, could have jeopardized a tentative settlement of the lawsuit that took two years to negotiate. It also shifted the city closer toward the position of the local Sierra Club chapter, which wants an aggressive water conservation program tied to the legal settlement.

The city, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Justice Department and the state Regional Water Quality Control Board have agreed to a timetable that calls for completion of the sewage system’s upgrading by Dec. 31, 2003.

A hearing on the Sierra Club challenge to the settlement is scheduled for Feb. 21.

Council members John Hartley, Linda Bernhardt and Abbe Wolfsheimer--reversing their position on the sewer suit for the second time in two days--said that they were persuaded to reconsider the consulting contract after they received assurances that the city’s water conservation program would receive high priority and come before the council next week.

“I think we made our point. We want water conservation treated as a priority, and I think it’s going to happen,” Hartley said.

Hartley, Bernhardt and Wolfsheimer voted for the settlement last month, but switched support to sewer system opponents Henderson and Filner on Monday. On Tuesday, the three reversed themselves again to support the reconsideration.

“We’ve got new members,” Mayor Maureen O’Connor said of Hartley and Bernhardt. “We’ve got a very young council that’s learning the process.”

O’Connor and Councilman Ron Roberts, strong supporters of the settlement, said that the council did not retreat from its position that water conservation should not be tied into the legal settlement.

City, state and federal attorneys will make that argument in federal court next week in opposition to the Sierra Club’s demand that water-saving measures be written into the settlement that could save money by substantially reducing the size of the proposed treatment system.

Reconsideration of the contract for James M. Montgomery Consulting Engineers is scheduled for Tuesday.