WiLD Blog

Last week on my way to Ensenada, I drove by the newest symbol of the Bush administration’s quest for freedom and democracy–a triple border barrier on Spooner’s Mesa just across from southwestern Tijuana that is reminiscent of the Berlin Wall. The newest anti-democracy fortification, built by National Guard units with no regard for federal or state environmental laws and basic engineering principles, will not improve our homeland security. It only weakens it.

This new wall that tramples the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law and the very foundation of our democracy, represents the worst of the national security state that President Bush and his handlers have imposed on our great nation. With no due process and no public participation, they have allowed incompetent government planners to implement policies based on 1950s era national security hysteria. Meanwhile these political appointees ignore the root causes of terrorism, leaving our security vulnerable through a weakened economy, unnecessary war and the establishment of an incompetent, ideologically driven, contractor-based bureaucracy.

So while Michael Chertoff makes plans to obliterate protected parkland and private property along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and disappear Border Field State Park at the southwestern corner of San Diego County, the United States does nothing to stop the flow of polluted air and water across the international border that imperils the health of hundreds of thousands of people who live on both sides of the newest Berlin Wall and border patrol agents tasked with defending our security.

National Guard units build Chertoff’s illegal wall without any consideration of even the most basic erosion control practices (a key feature of authoritarian government planning is faulty engineering), while their supervisors in Washington D.C. ignore the fact that the wall will actually exacerbate the pollution problems that make so many border patrol agents ill. Ideology trumps democracy along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The biggest defender of Chertoff’s Wall, Congressman Brian Bilbray, fled his U.S.-Mexico border hometown of Imperial Beach for the safety of the country club enclaves of North San Diego County. Luckily for the residents of Rancho Santa Fe, threatened by terrorist moles disguised as gardeners, construction workers and maids, Bilbray believes that the Chertoff Wall will improve the domestic security of his constituents despite the inconveniences of dirty dishes and un-manicured lawns. Such is the price of war.

For those of us who are residents of the U.S.-Mexico border, our families, friendships and communities and nations are made stronger by connecting us through a trans-boundary culture of democracy. I can only hope that our next president, despite his or her party affiliation, will recognize that we can only protect our homeland security through respect for the rule of law rather than by erecting a 2,000-mile gulag of fear.

Serge Dedina
Originally Published in the Voice of San Diego

Despite the embarrassing pleading of the UT editorial board on Monday for the feds to give Bajagua a fat sole-source no bid contract to build a sewage plant in Tijuana, the project is experiencing what the T-1000 in T2 went through after Arnold threw it into the pit of molten steel — dying an ugly death. Of course having the UT plead to the IBWC to give Bajagua a contract would be like having Dick Cheney write you a letter of recommendation to get a job at MoveOn.org — a tragic blunder.

If that wasn’t bad enough, according to the UT’s Mike Lee, during the September 14 court hearing on the existing International Wastewater Treatment Plant’s ongoing violations of the Clean Water Act: “U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz left in place a September 2008 deadline for the International Boundary and Water Commission to fix the pollution problem created by its wastewater treatment plant in San Ysidro.”

That means, unless Bajagua builds their plant in less than one year, their project is dead. Finished. Muerto. Finis. Kaput. Dude — it’s over.

Meanwhile, plans for building an alternative treatment plant on the U.S. side of the border that would cost $500 million less than Bajagua are moving forward. And the alternative publicly funded project has the political support in the U.S. Senate that Bajagua does not have. Here is the UT again.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she supports putting $66 million toward the San Ysidro facility next year — enough to get the roughly $100 million retrofitting project well under way. Her position is important because she sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is negotiating next year’s budget with the House. “I believe it presents the best opportunity for dealing with Tijuana River pollution,” Feinstein said in a statement sent yesterday to The San Diego Union-Tribune. At this point, there are simply too many unresolved questions about the Bajagua proposal,” she said. “We simply cannot afford to wait any longer on the assumption that the Bajagua plan will work out.”

More than 19 organizations including some of the U.S. and Mexico’s most influential environmental groups signed onto an August 20 letter to Feinstein supporting the alternative treatment plant. Some of the groups included the Natural Resources Defense Council, Heal the Bay, Defenders of Wildlife, The Ocean Conservancy the San Diego Chapters of the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club and the Coronado Surfing Association (I also signed onto the letter for WiLDCOAST).

The Bajagua team — Jim Simmons, Enrique Landa, Gary Sirota, Craig Benedetto and Marco Gonzalez — can’t seem to get a break these days. They’ve lost their support among the feds in the Senate and among enviros. Lee also reported that: “Bajagua’s preconstruction process in Mexico has not gone smoothly. Yesterday, company officials blamed the boundary commission for suspending work on the project. That status discourages construction companies from preparing bids for the job, Bajagua officials said.”

What corporation in their right mind would make plans with a company that has to depend on the IBWC and a federal judge to obtain a contract? Isn’t the point of the private sector to find customers on the open market and sell them a product? Where do judges and federal agencies fit into Adam Smith’s great big plan? What business school you have to attend to learn to write business plans like that at?

I can only imagine what Bajagua’s elevator pitch is these days, “Bro — if the judge grants an extension, and these fed dudes in El Paso approve our project, we might just have a killer sewage plant in TJ for you to partner with us on.”

In the meantime, sewage-polluted water continues to foul the waters of Imperial Beach. Over Labor Day weekend scores of surfers reported stinky water. And last Friday and Saturday the entire beachfront stunk, according to one observer, “like a dead seal.” One surf mom reported finding a condom in the water. Most likely the pollution was coming from the Punta Bandera sewage river miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border — a problem Bajagua would never solve. Can you say quagmire?

– SERGE DEDINA

Originally published in the Voice of San Diego 

Last Thursday evening the Bajagua family — Jim Simmons, Gary Sirota, Marco Gonzalez and various hangers-on — showed up in full force to the International Boundary and Water Commissions (IBWC) Citizen’s Forum at the beachside city of Imperial Beach Dempsey Holder Safety Center. There they enjoyed an evening of tense exchanges in broken Spanish with hapless bureaucrats responsible for improving Tijuana’s aging sewage infrastructure system.

The colorful Bajaguas of Rancho Santa Fe were more than likely a little disappointed that during the presentation by Toribio Cueva (Assistant Director of the Sanitation Department, State Public Services Commission of Tijuana (CESPT)) about improvements being made in TJ to the city’s sewage infrastructure, he did not once mention the Bajagua project.

The bizarre notion that Bajagua occupies a major space in the Mexican bureaucracy for future planning of sewage treatment plants, is a fantasy spun by the company’s PR rep, Craig Benedetto and bought hook line and sinker by the gullible San Diego media.

Luckily Scott Lewis of the Voice exposed the first Bajagua media hoaxthat their project was a “comprehensive solution” to the border sewage crisis that had been common currency for years among many reporters covering the company.

But some people never learn. On Aug. 9 Benedetto issued the following press release:

Bajagua Announces Issuance of Concession to Use Federal Property by Government of Mexico

Bajagua, LLC announced Wednesday that it has received a critical concession from the Government of Mexico to use federal land in the construction of the Bajagua sewage treatment facility.. “This is a major step forward for Bajagua and for clean water,” said Jim Simmons, Managing Partner of Bajagua, LLC. “There were those who have doubted Mexico’s support for Bajagua and our ability to get permission to use federal land for this important bi-national purpose. Those doubts should now be put to rest,” he added. “This important milestone brings all of the environmental and economic development benefits of Bajagua much closer to reality,” said Simmons.

This concession is not valid or in effect UNTIL Bajagua complies with the following (see pages 4 and 5 of the Resolution):

• Submit to CAN {National Water Commission) the construction plans of the project for review and approval.
  
• Obtain environmental impact assessment authorization from DGIRA-SEMARNAT
  
• Pay all costs required
  
• Once Bajagua complies with the requirements stated in the resolution and submits the series of documents CNA has required, Bajagua should get the TITLE OF CONCESSION issued by CNA.

The afore mentioned resolution does not represent the Mexican Federal Government’s support for Bajagua LLC’s wastewater project. The project is still pending authorizations from other Federal Agencies such as Direccion General de Riesgo e Impacto Ambiental (DGIRA).

Sally Spener, a spokeswoman for the boundary commission, said yesterday that her agency is evaluating Mexico’s land concession documents and would not comment on them.

Craig Benedetto … says getting land from the Mexican government is key to moving the project forward. Benedetto: The land itself is federally owned land and it was important because it shows one, Mexico’s commitment in putting some skin into the game by contributing that land. As well as showing their formal support contractually by issuing a concession to the company.

– SERGE

originally published in the VOICEOFSANDIEGO.ORG

I spent Saturday morning touring the coast between Tijuana and BajaMar in Northern Baja.

What a disaster. Garbage filled beaches. Giant fences preventing access to the coast. Sewage pouring into the ocean. No-planned houses and condos. Ugly fences keeping the public away from the garbage. Worker colonias and trash filled gullies.

It just doesn’t get any worse.

Unfortunately, it is getting worse. Day by day. Week by week. Month by month.

The Northern Baja “boom” as described by so many reporters and real estate developers is now officially out of control.

Dozens of mega-real estate projects are underway along the beachfront from Tijuana to Ensenada. It doesn’t look like there has been an urban plan or any plan in sight.

Problems include: 

Lack of coastal access–beach access is a federally guaranteed right in Mexico. There is not one coastal access sign anywhere in this corridor.

Sewage coastline–up to 30 million gallons of day of sewage pours into the ocean at the San Antonio gully just a few miles south of the border. Do you honestly believe the Baja California government is building new sewage treatment plants.

LNG plants–the irony is that Sempra chose to build its horrible LNG plants in what was the most pristine part of the coast left in the region at Costa Azul–next to BajaMar, one of the best planned coastal projects in the region.
High rise after high-rise are under construction. Now Donald Trump is building his dream ocean towers, just 2.6 miles north of the San Antonio sewage gully. I guess the guests will enjoy smelling the fragrant aroma of raw sewage. Serge