Tijuana River Valley May Get Emergency Status on Sewage

Gov. Pete Wilson was considering Thursday whether to declare a state of emergency for the sewage-plagued Tijuana River Valley in south San Diego County, state officials said.

The declaration would make state funds available to clean up the border valley, through which 13 million gallons of raw sewage from Mexico flow daily. It would also speed the permit process that would allow removal of cattails and willows restricting the flow of sewage to the ocean.

Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Rancho San Diego) released a statement saying he spoke with Bob White, Wilson’s chief of staff, Wednesday morning and “was very encouraged by his response.”

The Assembly threw its support behind the cleanup effort Wednesday by passing a house resolution urging Wilson to call a state of emergency for the area.

The action was the first to be taken by the Legislature this year, and came a day after the County Board of Supervisors declared a local emergency for the area, prompted by concerns that the summer would bring a repeat of last year’s unusually large swarms of mosquitoes, which thrive in stagnant pools of sewage in the valley. The mosquitoes from the foul-smelling sewage can transmit encephalitis, malaria and hepatitis to humans.

Money for the cleanup is available from the state Regional Water Quality Control Board, said David Takashima, Peace’s chief of staff. The governor’s discretionary funds, set aside for economic uncertainty, could also be used for an emergency cleanup.

The county hopes to construct a channel that would keep the sewage moving out to sea instead of forming stagnant pools, said John Woodard, chief of staff for county Supervisor Brian Bilbray, who represents the area and has been pushing for emergency status along with Peace for a year.

A bird on the federal endangered species list, the least Bell’s vireo, nests in several of the valley’s marshes between fall and spring, so any work done in the valley requires permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and should be kept to the winter months, Woodard said.