The Wall Street Journals “Washington Wire” (subscription) reports:
The White House, stepping into a controversy over cross-border pollution from Mexico, asked Congress for $71.7 million to enhance treatment of sewage drifting from Tijuana to communities in Southern California if a plan to use a private contractor falls through.
Until 2000, the U.S. had planned to expand treatment of sewage from Tijuana at an existing government-owned treatment plant on the border in San Ysidro, Calif. The intent was to help stem pollution from raw sewage causing frequent beach closures and damage to a wildlife estuary on the U.S. side.
As reported in a Jan. 29 Wall Street Journal front-page story, a group of Southern California lawmakers was able to cut off funding for that plan and instead helped a start-up company, Bajagua LLC, a generous contributor to their campaigns, obtain a no-bid contract to build an entirely new plant on the Mexican side of the border.
Bajagua recently has missed crucial deadlines spelled out in its contract, including for obtaining land, permits and financing. The White House proposal, part of the President’s 2008 budget plan, would expand treatment at the San Ysidro plant if Bajagua fails to meet the quirements by May 2.
As the Mexican border city of Tijuana has grown, so too has the amount of sewage Tijuana produces and sends downhill toward its neighbors to the north. Among the worst-affected areas is Imperial Beach, Calif., which suffered beach closures on 177 days in 2005 and 198 days in 2006 on account of health hazards from the contamination.
At sea level, coastal southern San Diego County lies at the bottom of a drainage system that originates in the Baja California mountains in Mexico, feeds into the Tijuana River, flows through the heart of Tijuana, and moves down into the ocean near Imperial Beach, in the foreground. Hillside slums on the outskirts of Tijuana can be seen in the background. Less than 60% of Tijuana’s sewage now is being treated at all, and that only to minimal levels.
For decades, limited efforts to treat the waste have lagged far behind growing volume. Even after light rainfall, raw sewage flows down the canyons from Tijuana.
Most of the houses in Tijuana’s hillside slums, or colonias, have latrines with above-ground plastic pipes running across the small front yards to the road, and discharging the contents into the road. The dirt roads, even in the dry season, all have gullies etched in the middle with raw sewage flowing downhill.
As it passes through Tijuana, the river picks up raw human waste, battery acid, old tires, household garbage and toxic chemicals.
The pollution has badly affected the Tijuana estuary, a 2,531-acre U.S. wildlife reserve, sandwiched between the border and Imperial Beach, through which the Tijuana River empties into the ocean. A botany professor who has studied the estuary’s ecology says polluted sediments have eliminated clams, sand dollars, and many fish species from the estuary and adjacent ocean bed.
Birds on the endangered species list, such as the light-footed clapper rail, have been harmed, and some plants native to the Tijuana estuary have been killed off. A rare species of pickleweed is now extinct.
Politicians provide a company with a “no-bid” contract as payback for political contributions and the Fed’s will have to bail out the problem. The new budget proposal for the first time would make funds available for additions to the San Ysidro plant if the Bajagua project falls through.
See also:
Send Home the Clowns by Morning Coffee
Valley Park: We Can’t Stop Now by Common Sense America
**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration(CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.
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February 6th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Worse than the fact that the project appears to have been the result of a few Congressmen pushing a contract for their contributors, two of the Congressmen actually BLOCKED the already-approved funding to EXPAND the existing wastewater treatment facility. That action (to block funding of another option) resulted in additional pollution of beaches, surfers, and marine life.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Coalition Against Illegal Immigration – Posts for…
C.A.I.I. Posts Today:
From CommonSenseAmerica, “Valley Park, We Can’t Stop Now”
“Rather than accept defeat, Valley Park, Missouri is standing strong against illegal immigration……..
February 7th, 2007 at 10:09 am
DHS inspector lied to Congress about Ramos and Compean …
**********BREAKING NEWS********** From Heidi at Euphoric Reality Congressman John Culberson (R-TX) announced today in Houston, TX that DHS-Inspector General Richard Skinner admitted that his deputy inspectors Lisa Redman and James Taylor as well as DHS…
February 7th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Rick W. White, retired Cal Gen Eng contractor, & US inventor.
I have ‘publicly disclosed’ my ‘years proven’ method of biologically treating water borne biological material, (including sewerage from Tijuana), without building any plant construction, or using any chemicals!
It is such a simple idea, that I’m “not ever” considering filing a US patent!
I describe my method as Soft Pipe Biological Water Filter, or SPBWF.
How it works: “Most people”, (including you!) have walked within a clear flowing creek, & (if you can recall), having ever picked up a pebble from ‘said clear flowing creek’, said pebble felt slimy!
That ‘slim’ is in reality ‘microscopic bacteria’ that survives on consuming said passing biological material from said creek!
I have penned ah’ “professional sound” BLIP: “Within a Waste Water environment, naturally occurring micro organisms are known to attach themselves to any reasonably firm surface such as gravel.”
Upon request, I would provide ‘gratis commercial quality’ shop drawings! &, I would consult for coffee! (The method will work within existing sewerage systems!)
Regards, & May God continue 2 bless!
Sincere as hell, Rick W. White
February 7th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
CAII ROUND UP…
I haven’t done this in a while so I figured it’s passed due.
Want some good reading?
Visit my fellow bloggers from CAII.
Lots of good stuff going on….
February 8th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Are ya ready to rumble? June 16th – NO AMNESTY March for America Rally Day…
…
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Where are the environmentalists on this one? They’ll scream their vocals cords out to stop drilling in ANWR, but they have no problem with Mexican sewage polluting our beaches?
February 27th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Just to let you all know that the organization I run, Wildcoast based in Imperial Beach has requested federal investigations of Bajagua over the past two years–but the problem is that since this corruption scandal is bi-partisan (everyone had their hands out)–all of our congressmen in San Diego received funds from the company–Congress is reluctant to do anything.
We have advocated spending much less money and in fact has filed complaints about existing contractors who work on maintaining existing sewage collector systems to actually do their job (they are now cleaning up these collector systems much better). These are issues to solve that actually do not benefit from huge wastes of taxpayer dollars. The money can be spent on small projects that actually solve the problem.
Our community is fighting hard against this project. Bajagua threatened Wildcoast with a lawsuit if we did not “cooperate” with them. Our Clean Water Now section of our website http://www.wildcoast.net has all of our info about our campaign to clean up the border and battle Bajagua.
And finally –the people who are getting sick from the sewage besides surfers, miitary families, fishermen and just plain old members of my community ( because Bajagua has blocked efforts to clean up this mess (that does not involve them getting a no bid contract)
–US Border Patrol officers and US NAVY SEALS who train just north of the border.
Serge Dedina, Executive Director
Wildcoast
Imperial Beach, California
March 7th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
We have developed a patented means for using the forces of buoyancy and gravity for
mixing liquids and slurries.
This technology is very appropriate at sewage treatment plants as from 40 to 60%
of the annual budget is going for electric ower cost.
The purpose of mixing with the activated sludge process is to bring the aerobic
microbes, the organics of the sewage and oxygen together throughout the entire
volume of the reactor tank.
The power cost savings of buoyancy and gravity mixing makes it possible to make
use of high purity oxygen (HPO) for the process. Air has about 21% oxygen. HPO
produced at 90% purity is economical to produce.
On September 11, 2003, Carlos Marin of IBWC authorized us to make a test run at the
Border Plant with our technology. We had excellent results. After 2 hours of
treatment the liquid portion, after the remaining solids settled (the portion that would go to the ocean), had suspended solids of 8 mg/L (similar unit as PPM) and a BOD of 17 mg/L.
Both of these are far below the 30 mg/L figure for ocean discharge.
With our technology it is possible to use the existing primary clarifiers as final
clarifiers without spending acent ot modify them.
We have estimated that at present construction costs, we can provide secondary
treatment to the 25 million gallons per day(MGD)throughput flow for less than
$20 million dollars. Parallel facilties can be constructed to bring another 25 MGD
on line at the Border Plant.
My first hands-on sewage treatment experience occured about 50 years ago when I had
to contend with the wastes from a 400-head-per-day beef packing company.
Gerhardt Van Drie, R.C.E., Owner