As Congress barrels toward finishing a massive spending bill by Friday, some wonder whether California Rep. Darrell Issa supports emergency funding to fix a broken wastewater plant at the border that’s key to keeping Tijuana sewage out of San Diego.
“Inland dude, Darrell Issa, has decided to now get involved in the sewage issue by making it as hard as possible to fix a broken sewage plant. Thanks dude,” wrote Serge Dedina, former mayor of Imperial Beach, the California town most blighted by Tijuana’s border sewage spills, on X in response to a Voice of San Diego story on the matter.
Issa, a Republican from Bonsall, has been questioning how the International Boundary and Water Commission, or IBWC (the binational federal agency in charge of the plant), allowed the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment plant to fall into such disrepair. The IBWC leader, Maria-Elena Giner, provided detailed responses within weeks but Issa still doesn’t seem satisfied.
Other interested parties are suspicious Issa hasn’t been supportive of funding the plant in the past and his sudden inquiry into the IBWC might be directed at trying to kill the funding.
“He has not joined our call,” said MaryAnne Pintar, California Democrat Rep. Scott Peters’ chief of staff. She pointed to letters Issa did not sign, including one Peters sent in September to former House Speaker Republican Kevin McCarthy asking for an emergency $310 million to make urgent repairs to the plant signed by the rest of San Diego’s Democratic representatives.
Issa’s team says he’s just trying to protect taxpayers.
“Issa is totally committed to completion of the project and the vital service it will deliver to our region,” said Jonathan Wilcox, a spokesman for Rep. Issa’s office. “Just as strongly, he is committed to the principles of transparency, oversight and the right of taxpayers not to be ripped off.”
Wilcox said Issa “has never blocked anything” related to the plant, pointing to letters Issa did sign including one that called on President Joe Biden to declare the sewage crisis a state emergency. When asked if he would in the future, Voice of San Diego got no response.
The South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, built with money from both the U.S. and Mexico in 1997, is struggling to clean the 25 million gallons or more Tijuana city sewage it receives each day. That’s due to decades of underfunding by Congress for routine maintenance and upgrades at the facility.
The people who run the South Bay plant have said they need $310 million in extra emergency funding from Congress to fix the plant after years of deferred maintenance. Some see Issa’s inquiries and recent statements as a last-minute bid to hold up that needed money.
“We understand Rep. Issa’s desire for transparency and accountability and fully support it,” said Kelly Davis, a spokeswoman for Democrat Rep. Scott Peters, adding that Peters received similar responses from Giner in a briefing last year. “It’s time for San Diego’s Congressional delegation to work together to press ahead fully to tackle the urgent, ongoing crisis in the South Bay, which numerous researchers have identified as a severe public health threat.”
When enough wealthy Republicans find the beaches adjacent to their multi-million dollar San Diego County mansions completely fouled by Tijuana runoff, Issa will start doing something about the issue. I just hope it’s not “Too little, Too late”
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Why is it our responsibility to treat disgusting sewage coming from another country’s broken plants? Don’t you think that getting answers to some really basic questions would be a good idea? Moreover, those federal tax dollars come from people all over the country. Why should people in PA, NH, MO, NE, and so forth care about YOUR beach? If you want it fixed then take up a collection in imperial beach to raise the 3 to 4 hundred million to fix it. Or do you just have a sense of entitlement that it is someone else’s responsibility to fix YOUR problems? You must be a democrat as I don’t know of any other group of people with such a sense of entitlement that they have a right to steal from other people to fix infrastructure affecting their own community.
Why is it our responsibility to treat disgusting sewage coming from another country’s broken plants?
BC brown trout flow downstream into American waters and Mexico does nothing to fix it creating a health hazard.
Moreover, those federal tax dollars come from people all over the country. Why should people in PA, NH, MO, NE, and so forth care about YOUR beach?
BC Federal tax dollars that come from everyone, are allocated everywhere in the US, and it is a Federal health problem to its citizens.
Or do you just have a sense of entitlement that it is someone else’s responsibility to fix YOUR problems?
This problem has been going on for decades, is as bad as the immigration issue, and based on your responses, you likely don’t live in the area and have absolutely zero understanding about it.
Mr do nothing career politician Issa, protecting taxpayers by letting a health hazard go on.
Hilarious. San Diego Democrats who have ignored the sewage problem for forty years are now pointing the finger at one Republican.
The problem goes back to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed on February 2, 1848, when Democrats effectively controlled Congress.
From that day forward to today, leadership in San Diego County has declined to acknowledge that water runs down hill. That is, Tijuana is situated above the river and so its sewage runs down to the U.S. side of the border.
It’s academic who is responsible for treating it. The reality is that it finds its way to San Diego’s side of the border whether treated or untreated sewage is dumped into the ocean.
Every Democrat I worked with in the 1980s and 1990s regarding sewage treatment issues was aggressively ignorance about the border issue, let alone the secondary treatment issues that forced me to go into federal court to save our Pt Loma environment and to save billions of ratepayer dollars.
Those Democrats such as Bob Filner and the others absolutely refused to put a realistic plan together to treat the sewage flowing into San Diego waters.
Many of those culprits remain in Congress and/or continue to point fingers rather than deal with reality.
Bruce Henderson
District 6 San Diego City Council 1987-1991
What is the relevance of that was then, this is now, to defend Issa? Today is still the problem. Who is on board? Who is not?
BC, this statement,
“Issa is totally committed to completion of the project and the vital service it will deliver to our region,” said Jonathan Wilcox, a spokesman for Rep. Issa’s office. “Just as strongly, he is committed to the principles of transparency, oversight and the right of taxpayers not to be ripped off.”
is lip service. No?
I understand both sides. Let’s break it down simplistically.
1. Emergency – we need to admit this is an emergency. Constant raw sewage going into the ocean affects lives and tourism – something all sides agree on. Emergencies need to be at the top of the list and expedited.
2. Money – it is clear mismanagement has been extreme. This has created a billion-dollar problem. However, money must be a large part of the solution. We need to agree that large amounts of money are required.
3. History – we need to clearly define (publically) what went wrong at the granular level. Without this understanding, we stand to make the same mistakes in the future. Redacted reports need to be unredacted – warts and all – for the public to see – this is OUR money. Kudos to VOSD!
4. Plan – this is what Issa should be looking for (which he states). Without a solid understanding of history, we cannot create a plan which will work. This plan needs to take everything into account. Simply writing checks will only address the symptoms but not the root cause.
5. Politics and Accountability – are the real problem. I expect the reason for the redactions is to ensure political parties (the US and Mexico) don’t look bad. Issa does not want to throw good money after bad without knowing the root cause. However, Issa must be the change agent in bringing this information to light.
That’s it. Fortunately, we have a disaster that should cause all parties to move forward. Without this disaster, nothing would change due to the political complexity. I’m grateful that VOSD is keeping the pressure on all parties. Politicians hate looking bad in the media – this pressure is often why difficult decisions are made.
Good explanation for why Californians and Mexicans in TJ should be paying to fix this, and not the people of other states. Moreover, the federal government needs to hold Mexico accountable. Why is the sewage spilling into the river from Tijuana and why isn’t the funding being coupled to other measures that will force Mexico to fix their disgusting sewage problems?
It’s ok money is coming,
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said Thursday that he has secured more than $103 million in additional funding to help repair the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant located near the U.S.- Mexico border.
Under this type of thinking, California should stop sending emergency fire-fighting personnel and equipment to all other states, right? Same for responses to hurricanes, earthquakes, too?
The treaties in question are creations of the federal government and besides, the last time I looked California provided much more in tax revenue to the feds than it ever gets back in services. Getting back some of this freely-given federal over-supply to improve the quality of life for millions who live nearby and to clean-up the ocean is fine by me.