The border sewage-wrangling federal agency fumbling with a broken wastewater treatment plant says it’s ready to go full steam ahead on fixing and expanding that plant: Within about 7 years.
The U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission announced Wednesday it hired contractors to begin simultaneously designing, fixing and expanding the plant that is supposed to treat 25 million gallons of Tijuana’s sewage per day. But it could take 20 months to complete the design and another five years to finish all the construction.
That means the sewage-affected beach communities in the U.S. can’t expect to be mostly pollution free until 2031.
“Addressing the water quality of the estuary, beach closures, and public health concerns of South Bay residents is a priority for the IBWC,” wrote Maria-Elena Giner, leader of the IBWC in a press release.
That’s four years longer than the IBWC anticipated it would take them when they released an estimated construction timeline back in 2022. Plus, the federal agency doesn’t yet have enough money to pay its contractors the full amount the IBWC will likely owe.
The projects are expected to cost around $600 million. And the IBWC has $400 million to its name right now, according to the agency. That price tag is twice as much as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency anticipated it would take to build a bigger and better sewage treatment plant that could take on double the sewage it works with now.
But that was before anybody knew how broken down the 30-year-old plant had become, after Voice of San Diego reported it. It will continue to struggle to do its job without sufficient funding from Congress to keep it in good shape. All of these costs discussed so far still don’t include what how much it will cost the IBWC to keep a fixed and expanded plant running each year, otherwise known as the price of operation and maintenance.
Frank Fisher, a spokesperson for the IBWC, said the IBWC shaved off six to nine months in additional time to complete these projects by hiring all the contractors needed to design and build the plant at once, a process called “progressive design-build.” Those contractors are PCL Construction out of Long Beach and Santec Consulting Services, Inc. a San Diego-based design firm.
Toad’s toilet water to drink is 2035. What’s the point?
Stantec is an international firm based out of Canada with a San Diego office.
I’d like to know if there’s been any discussion of turning the plant over to an experienced operator like the City of SD that would come with federal funds to make up for the extra burden. Is the federal government operating any other treatment plants besides military bases? Doesn’t seem like their forte.
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