Guest Column
Tijuana sewage problem resurfaces in new year
- By Talli Nauman
- The Herald Mexico
- February 12, 2006
Unusually alarming amounts of raw sewage dumped in Tijuana the first month of 2006 set off alarm bells for environmentalists who have been trying for years to clean up the pathogens running through the northwestern Mexico border city’s waste drainage to the sea.
But the longstanding proposal for building a new sewage plant is not the answer to the problem, they say. The private contractor for the Bajagua Project has nearly doubled the estimated bill for plant construction to US$2 million, and spending oversight mechanisms are not in place. A comprehensive water treatment plan with public input is needed.
The Bajagua wastewater facility would provide secondary treatment, a step beyond the primary phase that the runoff now receives, but that would still leave a lot of sewage with little or no processing. Meanwhile, for just half the expense of the current price tag, a more effective system could be designed.
Bajagua anticipates finishing construction in 2008 for a treatment plant with capacity to serve the current population level. But the demographic growth of Tijuana means that the plant will be outgrown even before it opens.
The inadequacy of the plan is so obvious that health advocates are scratching their heads in search of an explanation and wondering if Bajagua’ s generous contributions to recent campaign funds have anything to do with the circumstances.
The circumstances include last month's average of 5.5 million gallons of wastewater released per day into the Tijuana River watershed that flows to San Diego, California’s Imperial Beach. These discharges resulted in closures of prime surfing beaches after they had been declared off limits for the same reason 90 percent of the time during 2005.
While that was a source of great dismay for water sports enthusiasts, the bacteria and viruses spread by open sewage in the streets where children play are an even bigger worry for many neighborhoods along the Tijuana River and on the way down to the San Antonio Beach outfall on the south side of the border between California and Baja California.
To make matters worse, storm water and other runoff is flowing through the abandoned Metales y Derivados battery recycling plant on Otay Mesa then down into the Colonia Chilpancingo community in the canyon below, carrying waste with it from that condemned toxic dump site that is under remediation.
Bajagua is in the midst of submitting a proposal for its sewage plant project. Before the government approves it, people should make sure to offer their input on alternatives.
The company has no previous experience in municipal waste management. Taxpayers need to be sure that its project will not be another big corporate boondoggle like the narrowly avoided Mitsubishi saltworks expansion into the gray whale reserve in Baja California Sur in the late 1990s or the Chevron-Texaco liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal construction now underway near Ensenada, B.C. The public has seen enough of large private companies seeking to make profits at the expense of natural resources on the Baja Peninsula.
The alternatives to the sole sewage treatment plant proposal in Tijuana include requiring developers to stop cutting corners in infrastructure as they build housing projects. They include demanding industries that fuel population growth on the border to contribute to waste- water management.
Regulating polluted irrigation runoff from agriculture on both sides of the border would help. Simple maintenance of existing drainage infrastructure would keep garbage from piling up in it, allowing for more efficiency. Building a series of smaller pumping facilities could boost effectiveness of the present primary treatment installation and tie in underserved neighborhoods.
The improper disposal of municipal waste already has been the motive for costly court action. With due consideration of the options, another lawsuit could be avoided and environmental health protection could be secured just that much sooner.
This is a binational concern since it affects the health and economies of families and business communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, entailing financing on both sides as well. Clearly, cross-boundary collaboration will be necessary for successful resolutions, making the issue a likely one for participants in the joint Border 2012 environmental program to target.
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- Talli Nauman is a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, a project initiated with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She is the Americas Program Associate at the International Relations Center. She can be contacted by email at talli@direcway.com.
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