Lawsuit: Feds continue violating Clean Water Act for failing to control border sewage crisis

SOUTH COUNTY —

The International Boundary and Water Commission is being sued again for water quality permit violations that led to widespread sewage pollution on San Diego County’s southernmost coastline .

The San Diego Coastkeeper and Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday against the U.S. branch of the IBWC and its contractor Veolia Water North America-West, alleging violations of the Clean Water Act. Environmental groups announcement in December, their intention to sue the binational federal agency.

“We bring this lawsuit on behalf of the residents of our South Bay communities who continue to suffer the effects of the IBWC’s incompetence, as well as the coastal and marine wildlife and natural resources severely degraded by this incessant flow of pollution ” said Phillip Musegaas, executive director of Coastkeeper. said in a statement Friday. “We will use the power of the law to hold the IBWC accountable and force it to act to resolve Tijuana’s wastewater crisis once and for all. »

The IBWC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the 34-page complaint, the IBWC and Veolia “have released and continue to release pollutants such as fecal bacteria, contaminated sediments, heavy metals and toxic chemicals, some of which have been banned in the United States as DDT, Benzidine. , and polychlorinated biphenyls in the Tijuana River and estuary as well as in the Pacific Ocean.

“This human health, environmental justice, and environmental disaster directly impacts public health and deprives members of the local community of the right to live and recreate in a safe and clean environment,” the lawsuit states .

The IBWC, an agency of the U.S. Department of State, and Veolia operate the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant along the U.S.-Mexico border, intended to prevent sewage from Tijuana from entering San Diego. It was designed to treat 25 million gallons of Tijuana’s wastewater before releasing it into the ocean.

However, the plant regularly takes in more wastewater than it can treat due to ongoing problems with Tijuana’s failing infrastructure and heavy rains. This has taken a toll on the South Bay plant, which frequently clogs and releases partially treated wastewater into the ocean.

As a result, the federal agency’s faulty facilities have racked up hundreds of drinking water violations, which IBWC Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner has repeatedly acknowledged and said are ongoing resolution.

“Our plant is currently non-compliant from a water quality standpoint and a flow standpoint,” she said at a March 27 Imperial Beach City Council meeting. .

Giner added that the agency is repairing the plant’s headworks and primary sedimentation tanks, which will help IBWC come into compliance by August.

But environmental groups in San Diego say that’s not enough.

“We need a comprehensive, fully funded solution to this public health and environmental disaster,” Marco Gonzalez, CERF executive director and lead attorney, said in a statement. “The historic patchwork of funding and planning has clearly not worked. The government must act with the sense of urgency that this situation demands.

A 2022 settlement of a similar lawsuit against IBWC led to $300 million in funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to double the South Bay plant’s capacity. But the federal agency acknowledged last year that the funds would be insufficient as the costs of repairing and expanding the deteriorating plant had risen to nearly $1 billion.

Last month, Congress significantly increased the IBWC’s construction budget for cross-border projects. It allocated $156 million, a Increase of $103 million compared to last year’s budget. Most of that new money will go toward repairing the South Bay plant, Giner said. Millions more dollars will be needed to expand the facility.

“Despite these infusions of funds, permit violations at the South Bay wastewater treatment plant continue unabated, and enormous volumes of wastewater and hazardous chemicals continue to contaminate the Tijuana River Valley and the local communities,” the environmental groups said in a press release.