U.S. Water News Online
SAN DIEGO -- An environmental group and a federal water commission has reached an agreement aimed at cleaning up discharges from an international sewage treatment plant that has been sending wastewater into kelp beds and the surf zone in San Diego.
The U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission has agreed to comply with its discharge permit and the Clean Water Act, either by building secondary sewage treatment ponds or sending the wastewater to Mexico to be treated.
The settlement is the result of a lawsuit filed in 1999 by the Surfrider Foundation, which accused the U.S. section of the IBWC of releasing polluted wastewater into an area of the ocean where the current carries water back to shore and into kelp beds and the surf zone.
The settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge, also calls for independent experts to determine the environmental impacts of the discharges and whether current monitoring is adequate.
San Diego beachgoers can now ``look forward to someone protecting them,'' said Rory Wicks, a lawyer for the Surfrider Foundation. ``So far this outfall has been monitored by the people who own it.''
The U.S. section of the IBWC is committed to complying with water quality standards, said commissioner John Bernal. ``We are pleased that we have reached a proposed agreement ... to provide secondary treatment,'' he said.
The International Wastewater Treatment Plant in the Tijuana River Valley just north of the U.S.-Mexico border hasn't been able to keep up with the amount of sewage coming from the border area.
The U.S. section of the plant sends 25 million gallons of wastewater a day through primary treatment only. The overflow spills into the Tijuana River Valley and border area beaches when it rains.
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