Fanfare for U.S.-Mexico Sewage Plant Leaves Job of Sorting Out the Details

U.S. and Mexican authorities joined Friday in celebrating the formal agreement calling for construction of a jointly operated sewage-treatment plant in San Diego, but officials cautioned that funding and procedural obstacles remain before the long-awaited facility is built.

“These are just the general guidelines; now we get to the specifics,” noted Narendra, N. Gunaji, U.S. commissioner to the International Boundary and Water Commission, the binational body that crafted the historic accord, which was signed Monday at the commission’s El Paso office after years of negotiation.

The commissioner was among a number of dignitaries who gathered in San Diego Friday to praise the agreement, which is viewed as a solution to the decades-old problem involving the northward flow of sewage generated in Tijuana.

The transnational sewage flow here has been among the most intractable environmental problems along the almost-2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border. The international nature of the pollution has often frustrated cleanup efforts, a fact that in recent years has prompted the presidents of both nations to sign a series of environmental pacts pledging each government to work together to combat the problem.

In interviews, some officials voiced a cautionary note about the project, pointing out that funding for the almost-$200 million project remains mostly in the anticipatory stage.

Also pending are the results of an independent environmental impact assessment, the findings of which could be critical. The plant and adjoining facilities would be situated near a sensitive wetlands habitat in the Tijuana River basin. A huge pipe discharging treated effluent into the Pacific Ocean would enter the surf at a point not far from two federally protected ecosystems, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Sanctuary and the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge.

“There are some big hurdles to cross here yet,” said Roger Frauenfelder, deputy San Diego city manager, who nonetheless expressed optimism that the initiative will advance. “I think that, if the problem of raw sewage flowing into the Tijuana River Valley is to be solved, then this project is inevitable,” Frauenfelder said.

The pact’s centerpiece is the planned construction of a treatment plant at a site just 100 yards north of the international boundary, near Dairy Mart Road in San Diego. In addition, the accord requires building a range of related collection and discharge systems on both sides of the border, including the ocean outfall.

The Tijuana-San Diego system is proposed to be operational by late 1994 or early 1995. The facility would treat up to 25 million gallons daily of Tijuana sewage, but officials said it could be expanded later to meet the fast-growing Mexican city’s needs. No U.S.-generated waste is to be treated at the facility.

On Friday, many speakers voiced the hope that the accord could auger an era of heightened cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities on a range of binational issues.

“This solution to a physical problem makes me optimistic that we’ll be able to succeed in more challenging social problems,” said U.S. Sen Pete Wilson (R.-Calif.), who served as mayor of San Diego when tensions about the sewage issue were high.

At a time of heightened consciousness of water shortages, both Mexican and U.S. officials reserved the right to reclaim the treated sewage and use it for a variety of tasks, including watering parks and other green areas.

For half a century, San Diego landowners and lawmakers have complained about the ever-escalating volume of untreated waste that daily flows north from Tijuana, reaching the Tijuana River basin area of southwestern San Diego County. The sewage originates mostly in residential zones of the fast-growing Mexican city, where many homes have faulty or primitive sewage disposal systems. A 2 1/2-mile swath of beach just north of the border has been quarantined since the early 1980s because of the sewage.

The U.S.-Mexico agreement--a nine-page boundary commission document known formally as a “minute”--is a broad, conceptual blueprint that binds both nations to the project but leaves many details to be hammered out. Both sides will share operational expenses of the treatment plant, which will be run by boundary commission personnel.

The sewage will be cleansed to U.S. standards, a safeguard that has long been sought by activists who feared that any Mexican process would be insufficient. That fear largely propelled the effort to construct a binational plant on U.S. territory. As part of this agreement, Mexico is scuttling plans to build another sewage treatment plant in Tijuana’s rapidly expanding eastern suburbs. Wastes from those areas are now expected to be piped to the international facility.

In response to U.S. fears of rampant raw commercial wastes, Mexico agreed to require that all industries provide pre-treatment of waste waters before it is dumped into the city sewage system--and, ultimately, into the international treatment plant. In addition, Mexico agreed to take back the solid sludge that will be a byproduct of the treatment plant.

Among the key remaining hurdles is funding of the huge project, which is estimated to cost about $190 million and includes the price of the treatment plant, pipelines and collector systems on both sides of the border.

Overall, U.S. authorities are expected to kick in about $100 million. To date, only about $32 million of that is definitely earmarked, officials said. U.S. authorities have requested that Congress provide an additional $15.7 million for the coming fiscal year.

The Mexican share is expected to be about $41 million, but U.S. authorities have agreed to a loan program that relieves Mexico of the burden of putting any money up front. The agreement specifically defers Mexico’s payments until the international plant begins operation. Thereafter, Mexico is expected to pay its share in annual installments over 10 years.

A combination of San Diego city funds and state of California money are expected to make up most of the rest of the cost of the project.

Once completed, the facility will the third operating binational sewage-treatment initiative along the U.S.-Mexico border, after a long-running international plant in Nogales, Ariz., and another that is planned for Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Tex. Another joint plant, serving Douglas, Ariz., and Agua Prieta, Mexico, was abandoned during the 1960s when the two established separate systems.