August 11th, 1999
Summary provided by Cyrus Reed, Texas Center for Policy Studies
On August 11, 1999, the Board of Directors of the Border Environment Cooperation Commission held a public meeting in El Paso, Texas. The Board approved certification of a wastewater treatment plant upgrade and expansion project for Westmorland, California; considered a request for technical assistance from Nogales, Arizona; and took public comments on a variety of issues, including proposed cuts in the BECC and EPA border budgets, and the environmental impacts of a road outside of the San Diego area for use by the Border Patrol.
In attendance for the Board were U.S. public representative Lynda Taylor, acting as chairperson; Bill Nitze, from the EPA; Thomas Soto, president of PC Enterprises in Santa Monica, California; Guadalupe Osuna, Hydraulic Infrastructure Coordinator for the State of Baja California; Dr. Jorge Bustamante, Mexico's public representative; Chairman Guzman, on behalf of SEMARNAP, and Arturo Herrera, from the Mexican section of the IBWC (known as CILA in Spanish). Board members John Bernal, IBWC representative, Chairman Ygnacio Garza and Rogelio Ramos, the Social Development Secretary from Coahuila were not able to attend the meeting. Besides BECC's General and Deputy General Managers, and many members of the BECC staff, between 40 and 50 people were at the meeting, including non-governmental organization representatives, members of BECC's advisory council and government officials from both sides of the border.
Following approval of the previous meeting's agenda, and introductions, the BECC asked project manager Salvador Lopez to present the Westmorland project. A summary of the Westmorland project can be found on the BECC website. Westmorland is a small city of 2,000 about 26 miles north of the border. The project would expand the wastewater treatment plant's capacity from 375 to 500,000 gallons per day, as well as replacing the treatment ponds with an oxidation ditch. The project is needed both because of expected population increases as well as an administrative order and levying of fines for failure to comply with California regulations. Among the problems the plant has had include seepage of untreated wastewater, lack of reliable influent pumping, and lack of disinfection facilities.
The estimated capital cost of the project is $4,984,700, which includes approximately $1.1 million in engineering design, construction management, and administration, legal and contingency costs. The City of Westmorland currently has commitments of $3.6 million in grants and loans ($2.07 million), mainly from the United States Department of Agriculture and is planning to apply for approximately $1.8 million from the North American Development Bank in BEIF (Border Environment Infrastructure Fund) grants. Provided that the expected BEIF funds are approved by NADBANK, a rate study conducted by the NADBANK recommends keeping sewer fee rates at current levels, and even recommended lowering water fee rates for multi-family residents over the next 10 years.
Lopez said the project met all of the BECC's certification criteria, including the community participation criteria. In addition to having a local citizen steering committee, the project sponsor held two public meetings, and distributed information door-to-door about the project. No opposition to the project was announced at either public meeting. Finally, because of the USDA loan for this and other projects, Westmorland was required to hold an election among property owners to form an Appraisal District (property taxes would be used if user fees could not pay off the loan). Some 63% of the property owners voted to approve the appraisal district. (General Manager Javier Cabrera later remarked that this supplied a form of independent approval of the project.) Finally, Lopez reported on how the project met the sustainable development criteria.
Lynda Taylor then opened up the meeting to questions by members of the Board, Advisory Council and public on the project. There were several questions asked of the staff and project promotors. Taylor asked if the Citizen's Committee would continue to operate after certification; Lopez and Ricardo Castañon replied that yes, indeed, the promoter planned to continue the citizen's committee in some form to follow this and other projects. Advisory Council member María Josefina Guerrero then chastized the BECC staff for not providing a more complete and thorough report on the public meetings held in Westmorland. First of all, Guerrero stated that the reports of the meetings were very general, and did not provide the specific number of people at meetings, the specific number who supported the project and the specific sectors of society represented. She felt that if in Mexican projects the BECC was requiring that public participation be more scientifically quantified to show public support, in the U.S. they should do the same. BECC staff member Javier Torres responded that the full Step II document did provide more specific number, but that it was difficult to provide that kind of detailed information in the summary document. Lynda Taylor added that part of the goal of the sustainable development guidelines, currently in draft form, was to push promoters to conduct more accurate and thorough public participation plans. Finally, director Bustamante said that all projects should have a common denominator, so that projects are presented and considered in the same way, whether they are on the U.S. or Mexican sides of the border.
Other comments/questions included Cyrus Reed's question as to whether they had considered alternatives to chlorine as a form of disinfection because of the toxicity of chlorine byproducts (they had, but in the end decided chlorination with a dechlorination step added was the most economical and efficient for the system); and Mark Spalding's question about how the staff determined whether the project met the sustainability criteria. (Staff responded that it was based upon the expected population growth, the capacity of the system, environmental impacts and the financial sustainability).
Francisco Treviño asked if the staff in the future could include photos and information about the area and also asked whether the BECC was looking at regional solutions. Salvador Lopez answered that indeed they had looked at regionalization, but that in general regionalization in the area was a greater possibility for water than for wastewater because of the expense of pumping. He mentioned that in the City of Blithe, they were looking at regionalization for surrounding colonias like Palo Verde and Mesa Verde. General Manager Javier Cabrera said the regionalization question was a good one, and said that in the first few years BECC has favored a bottom-up approach in which it accepts projects from local cities on a project-by-project basis. The question is does the BECC try and impose or push regional solutions, when the locals don't want it. Thus, a regional solution may be the best environmental and cost solution, but politically may not be possible. He said in general he is in favor of pushing for more regionalization.
Members of the City Council of Westmorland then asked the Board for certification and then reiterated that the citizen's committee would continue. Bart Christiansen from EPA in California then read a statement of support for the project.
The Board then unanimously certified the project, though reminding everyone that if there were substantial changes to the project, it would have to be resubmitted. Lynda Taylor then asked for a report on a technical assistance request. According to the application, the City of Nogales, Arizona would join forces with Nogales, Sonora in a master planning effort for water/wastewater. However, while the staff supports the granting of technical assistance, they also requested that the Board delay a vote till they had worked out coordination between efforts being undertaken in Nogales, Arizona, Nogales, Sonora and the IBWC's Minute 294 projects. Essentially, they want to make sure things run smoothly.
A representative of the City of Nogales was concerned about the delay but asked for the support. Maria Josefina Guerrero asked that the Board go ahead and approve the technical assistance request so that work could continue in both communities -- she said because of recent flooding in Nogales, solid waste has accumulated in the rivulets and canyons in the area, flowing into Nogales, Arizona and has become an environmental and political problem. The Board said they did not want to vote until staff was comfortable, but agreed on a motion by Herrera to vote electronically as soon as possible, hopefully within August.
Lynda Taylor then opened the meeting to general comments. Cyrus Reed mentioned that several NGOs and academics from both sides of the border, along with two members of the advisory council had met the previous day with members of the BECC staff, Deputy General Manager Pete Silva and General Manager Javier Cabrera to discuss issues of common interest. Among the issues discussed were improving public participation and local steering committees, continuing local steering committees after certification, the role of the advisory council, ensuring participation by private companies in the BECC process while also ensuring they provided community benefits, and whether BECC could move beyond water, wastewater treatment and municipal solid waste to consider other environmental issues. Reed said the results of the meeting would be published in a white paper with a litany of possible recommendations to the BECC Board and advisory council and that another meeting was probable. The meeting expenses were covered by the C.S. Mott Foundation not by the BECC. Reed also asked the status of the current proposed budget cuts in the House and Congress for both the BECC and the EPA border funds.
Pete Silva said the news wasn't good, because both House and Senate subcommittees had passed budgets which keep BECC at its current funding level of $1.54 for FY 2000. Javier Cabrera said that it wasn't just a question of funding for this year, but whether the two federal governments had a real commitment to the new institutions -- whether they thought they were worth it -- or not. For this to happen, it was up to border citizens to weigh in one way or the other.
Director Guzman from SEMARNAP pointed out that Mexico has been committing over $5 million a year to both the Commission on Environmental Cooperation and the BECC for the last several years, as per the side agreements established by NAFTA. Nonetheless, Mexico is much smaller economically and financially than the US and there should be reflexion on to what extent this is a fair or sustainable situation.
Oscar Romo said SEMARNAP should put a link on its web page dealing with the annual state of the environment to the accomplishments of the BECC.
Carlos Rincon invited people and asked the EPA to send someone to a conference on September 9 and 10th on climate change and announced the success of a conference organized by SEMARNAP and INE in Ciudad Juarez on July 22 and 23 in Cd. Juarez. Director Guzman announced that INE could send someone to the Climate Change conference now that they have a separate program within INE on climate change. He also said that in future sustainable development work they would work more closely with the Urban Planning department of SEDESOL.
Mark Spalding said they he was dismayed to read an e-mail from NADBANK announcing requests for bids on the Westmorland project dated on August 10, one day before the project was even being considered for certification. Spalding said that if he thought all decisions were made beforehand and couldn't be influenced by participation, he wouldn't bother to come to meetings. He said this revealed a basic problem: lack of coordination between the BECC and NADBANK. Secondly, he said that he was surprised to find out that the advisory council had never in its history had a quorum and hoped -- since it was an integral part of the agreement -- that it would be supported.
Lynda Taylor responded to Spalding that they would certainly make the coordination with NADBANK one of their topics at their next meeting. Javier Cabrera spoke of the stages of development of the advisory council and said that part of the brainstorming session with NGOs and academics had exactly involved what the role of the advisory council really should be. (The advisory council was to meet on August 12th to discuss and hopefully adopt a work plan). He said the advisory council had a difficult, but important role.
Finally, Jorge Bustamante brought up an additional matter -- the construction of a 27-kilometer road in the Tijuana/San Diego area by the Corps of Engineers for the drug smuggling and undocumented immigrant review by the U.S. Border Patrol. Bustamante said he was not taking a position, but merely wondering if people on the Board, or with the EPA, State Department could answer whether the Corps of Engineers has conducted an Environmental Impact Statement, whether Mexico was given a chance to review and comment on them and whether the project could affect the environment in Mexico.
Oscar Romo then said that a group of Mexican and U.S. citizens, as well as officials of Mexico, including the City of Tijuana and the IBWC (CILA) has been given copies of an initial EIA, but very incomplete. They have been told a more complete EIA would be conducted, but perhaps after construction has begun. Romo said the project could affect Mexico, particularly as the construction will place dirt in the canyons, affecting water flow in the area. He is particularly concerned about an island in the area, which has never been affected by population growth, and has a unique habitat with special plants, mammals, insects and birds.
Herrera said that CILA has been involved in the process, but is only looking at whether the project will affect river flow and has asked for changes to ensure that it doesn't.
Bustamante asked for a formal motion to write a letter from the BECC to the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers and other officials for answers to his questions. However, Nitze questioned the motion and instead Taylor asked that the issue be a subject for their next work session where it could be discussed. All directors were in agreement.