In 2021, I wrote that a contract to fix an ailing wastewater pump in Tijuana would be awarded to a contractor that spring.
It did happen in spring – only five years late.
On Monday officials from Baja California and the U.S. convened outside that aging pump to announce construction would finally begin. The pump station, known as PB-1, is one of the many problem child pieces of infrastructure built to stop sewage spilling into the Tijuana River. It suffers mechanical failures, power outages and gets sent more water than it has the capacity to handle quite often.
Tijuana’s topography allows most of its sewage to flow toward the border by gravity. But its wastewater system needs a few electric-powered pumps to blast it to treatment plants located across the border in the U.S. and one on the Mexican coastline.
When PB-1 breaks, or there is simply too much water for it to handle, sewage spills into a border drain which empties in the river. (The river empties into the Pacific Ocean just south of Imperial Beach – thus polluting and closing shorelines due to contamination.) That happened just last month, though officials at the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission said water didn’t make its way into the river that time.
“This is the heart of our wastewater system,” said Victor Manuel Barragán, Baja California’s secretary of water, during an interview Monday. “If this is not working then basically all of that sewage goes to the river.”
The pump hasn’t been upgraded since 1998, said Nicolle de Leon, spokesperson for Tijuana’s water and wastewater services commission called CESPT.
“After that date, equipment was only replaced sporadically or as needed,” she said.
The U.S. government is spending $13.4 million to rehab this pump station, a stone’s throw from the U.S.-Mexico border. The Mexican government plans to pay for the rest of the $30.8 million project.
In this case, the U.S. is helping to pay for part of the project through the North American Development Bank or NADBANK, an investment tool created in the 1990s where both countries can put money to invest in international projects. Projects through the bank have to undergo more levels of scrutiny to ensure both countries know how the money is being spent.
John Beckham, NADBANK’s managing director, said the project took five years to break ground in part because the project had to go out for public bid three times. The first two public bidding processes didn’t yield enough contractors who could meet NADBANK’s requirements.
“There was a low level of certainty that the contractors and the equipment they were bidding was what we needed to do the job,” Beckham told me.
A contracting firm in Tijuana called Urbanizadora ROMA SA de CV and an engineering and construction company based in Querétaro called Latinomericana Agua y Medio Ambiente eventually won the bid, according to Irma Flores, a spokesperson for NADBANK.
Barragán estimated it would take 18 months to upgrade the sewage pump system.
In Other News
- San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed budget cuts money from a fund set up to build projects for underserved residents in the name of climate change. (Voice of San Diego)
- San Diego’s Local Agency Formation Commission says dissolving the San Diego County Water Authority may be the best way to address regional water costs and needs in the future. (Voice of San Diego)
- The city of San Diego’s new trash fee will bring in less revenue than expected because some customers are opting for smaller, lower-cost bins. (Voice of San Diego)
- Great white sharks have abandoned their nursery in La Jolla making way for Baja California-based hammerhead, bull and tiger sharks to potentially take their place. (Union-Tribune)
- SDG&E released a proposed route for a new transmission line from Imperial Valley to the Orange County border. At least one desert conservation group is already opposing the power line. (Union-Tribune)
- New report says we have dirty air. (KPBS)
- San Diego County has a brand new trail: Ruffin Canyon Trail, located between Serra Mesa and Mission Valley. (Union-Tribune)