The San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to explore possible legal action against corporations allegedly responsible for the border pollution crisis.
Supervisors voted on the measure, proposed by Terra Lawson-Remer and Nora Vargas, after hearing a staff presentation on county efforts to help residents in and around the Tijuana River Valley who are affected by sewage flows and other pollution.
According to a statement from Lawson-Remer’s office, county legal counsel every 90 days must present the board with “updates and available opportunities to pursue lawsuits against any potentially responsible parties for damages caused to the Tijuana River Valley, Estuary and Marine Preserve, and the surrounding neighborhoods.”
She cited the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act as laws that may have been violated.
Last week, Lawson-Remer joined a group of residents from Imperial Beach who have sued Veolia Water Operating Services and Veolia Water North America-West – entities that operate the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant.
“The Tijuana River sewage crisis is a critical regional issue and an environmental crisis for our entire county. The coastal communities I represent are heavily impacted,” said Lawson-Remer while speaking with the plaintiffs.
The move is not without precedent. The county successfully sued opioid manufacturers to the tune of more than $100 million, and is in the process of suing a ghost gun company.
Veolia, a French concern, was also involved in the Flint, Mich. water crisis and has been in litigation for other public health crises in the U.S. and abroad – in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Colombia.
During public comment on Tuesday, a Veolia official told the board it was unfair to blame his company for the border crisis.
“No one can properly operate a wastewater treatment plant when the flood breaks pumps, breaks equipment, fills up the tanks,” said Adam Lisberg, a senior vice president for external communications. “Attacking our company is a distraction from the real root causes that we’ve all heard about here.”
A plant manager urged supervisors to visit the facility. “Please come check out what we do,” he said. “We’ve been at this for years.”
In a statement issued after the supervisors’ vote, Veolia pointed to “the decades-long failure of the authorities on both sides of the border to address the surge of unchecked sewage and pollution pouring in from Tijuana in quantities that far exceed the capacity of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant.”
A woman who identified herself as a county employee said it was not surprising that the crisis had “hit unserved areas, making the county response more critical.”
“The louder the squeaky wheel, the more oil it will receive,” she said, adding that polluters must be held accountable.
“It is not just a federal job – it is the county that needs to be louder,” she said.
Vargas, board chairwoman, said the county has been working on the crisis, and added that Mexico is also doing its part by improving the plant in Baja California.
“This is not something that we’re taking lightly,” Vargas said.
Lawson-Remer, board vice chair, said Tuesday that border sewage problem is also a regional issue, even in North County.
According to Lawson-Remer, in 2017, the county was “preparing to pursue legal action over the wastewater violations now being outlined by the residents of Imperial Beach, but the previous Board of Supervisors opted for inaction instead,” she said.
“It is a new day in San Diego County,” Lawson-Remer said. “The weight of the county government joining together with our residents will help to drive accountability and action by the entities who are violating people’s right to clean air, water and beaches.”
The San Diego City Council recently approved a resolution asking for a national emergency regarding the sewage outflow at the border. The council had approved 31 years of consecutive extensions of a local state of emergency on the situation.
The council first declared a state of emergency because of the pollution – ranging from raw sewage to industrial runoff – in 1993. Imperial Beach put out a similar declaration in 2017, followed by the county in 2023.
Since October 2018, the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission has recorded more than 200 billion gallons of toxic waste coming into the U.S. through the Tijuana River Valley.
According to a city document on Tuesday’s resolution, the commission has spent just $4 million of $40 million allocated for infrastructure maintenance at the South Bay treatment plant, which has fallen into disrepair.
Updated 3:50 p.m. Oct. 22, 2024
