Countywide

A proposal that would create a San Diego-area super agency responsible for sewage treatment and with the authority to issue nearly $4 billion in bonds has passed the California Senate.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Lucy Killea (D-San Diego), was approved unanimously Sunday night and will now go to the Assembly for consideration.

Killea’s measure would create the San Diego Area Wastewater Management District, an agency governed by a 20-member board of directors chosen from San Diego and its suburbs. With a two-thirds vote, the board could authorize up to $3.9 billion in revenue bonds to help provide secondary sewage treatment and allow the area to meet requirements of the federal Clean Water Act.

The agency would also be responsible for selling or using as much as 70,000 acre-feet of reclaimed water throughout the area.

The proposed agency would replace the Metropolitan Sewage System, run by the city of San Diego and now under a federal consent decree to build a secondary sewage treatment plan, implement water conservation and build six water-reclamation plants by 1999.