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As proponents of the Bajagua border sewage-treatment project celebrate the signing of a long-awaited development agreement, opponents vow to continue their fight for an alternative plan.
by Caitlin Rother
27/02/2006:// SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
HIGHLIGHTS:
-Project contract worth up to One billion dollars-no pubic oversight, no competitive bids. Bajagua has no experience in wastewater management
-FILNER RECEIVED $66,000 from Bajagua
-BILBRAY-WORKED AS LOBBYIST FOR COMPANY AFTER HE LEFT OFFICE. TESTIFIED IN FAVOR OF PROJECT IN CONGRESS WITHOUT DISCLOSING HE WAS PAID BY BAJAGUA TO BE LOBBYIST-$35,000 in 2001 alone
-BAJAGUA "CONSULTANT" INFILTRATED SIERRA CLUB SAN DIEGO CHAPTER AND DID NOT DISCLOSE BAJAGUA TIES DURING "PUSH" TO SUPPORT PROJECT
NOTABLE QUOTES:
“Bajagua's connections with Vice President Cheney and . . . the fact that Duke Cunningham was a champion in their cause should make any decent person's skin crawl.” -Investigative reporter-Whistleblower Coalition
“They have the money from Solomon Bros or some other investment firm and want to move this forward,” Mary Brandt, a State Department official, wrote in an e-mail to a colleague July 29, 2003. “Money talks and when I leave I think I'll write a book about this experience. For now I feel drained and in need of a shower.”
Lawmakers worried by Bajagua's influence
By Caitlin Rother STAFF WRITER
February 26, 2006
As proponents of the Bajagua border sewage-treatment project celebrate the signing of a long-awaited development agreement, opponents vow to continue their fight for an alternative plan.
Critics doubt the proposed treatment facility in Mexico will actually come to fruition. Even if it does, they say, it won't be able to handle the increasing volume of sewage flowing across the border from Tijuana.
Two watchdog groups, three California state legislators and the city of Imperial Beach, which is directly affected by sewage-related beach closures, also still object to the process by which San Diego-based Bajagua Project LLC was awarded a sole-source contract.
With national focus already on Capitol Hill lobbying, these critics are disturbed by Bajagua's push, which included meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, a letter to President Bush and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and payments to lobbyists.
The harshest critics, including state Assembly members Lori Saldaña and Juan Vargas, allege that corruption and the political strong-arming of federal officials led to the pact's signing.
The Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog agency in Washington, D.C., has been looking into the project since last summer.
“Our main concern is that certain members of Congress have wielded too much influence in federal agency decision-making in order to help Bajagua,” spokesman Nick Schwellenbach said. “It's understandable when contractors look out for their own interests. . . . It's unconscionable when our elected officials don't look out for ours.”
For years, San Diego's entire congressional delegation has supported the project. In particular, Reps. Bob Filner and Duncan Hunter and former Reps. Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Brian Bilbray have lauded it as the best solution to the decades-old sewage problem.
Filner, one of the company's more outspoken proponents, accuses critics of trying to sabotage a sewage solution without offering specific alternatives.
“We should be celebrating a 10-year effort that's finally going to deal with an issue, and these guys are still harping on it,” said Filner, who believes the criticism is politically motivated.
Filner is running for re-election in the 51st District against Vargas, a fellow Democrat who has accused Filner of taking campaign contributions from Bajagua investors in exchange for advancing the project. Filner and Bajagua deny any such arrangement.
Federal officials whose agencies have been involved in the negotiating process with Bajagua have privately expressed concern about the access and influence that company executives and local lawmakers have had with high-ranking White House officials.
“They have the money from Solomon Bros or some other investment firm and want to move this forward,” Mary Brandt, a State Department official, wrote in an e-mail to a colleague July 29, 2003. “Money talks and when I leave I think I'll write a book about this experience. For now I feel drained and in need of a shower.”
“Note coincidence,” a colleague said in an e-mail to Brandt and others Sept. 5, 2003. “Bajagua met with VP Cheney yesterday and White House met with Hunter.”
Five days later, Mario Lewis, then-general counsel for the U.S. side of the International Boundary and Water Commission, which signed the recent agreement with Bajagua, conveyed to a colleague the concerns of Justice Department attorney Mary Neumayr.
“Mary . . . expressed anxiety at having learned that Bajagua had gotten into high levels at OVP (office of the vice president) and State,” Lewis wrote.
Bill Weaver, senior adviser to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, said a commission whistle-blower gave him the e-mails. Weaver then published them in an article posted on Imperial Beach's Web site.
Weaver said he interviewed 16 concerned commission employees during his own investigation into the Bajagua project.
“The well-being of San Diegans is being sacrificed to enrich a company with no history of undertaking any similar projects,” Weaver wrote in an e-mail in response to a question from The San Diego Union-Tribune. “Bajagua's connections with Vice President Cheney and . . . the fact that Duke Cunningham was a champion in their cause should make any decent person's skin crawl.”
Cunningham, who signed a letter to Bush backing Bajagua in March 2002, resigned in November after pleading guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.
Bajagua spokesman Craig Benedetto said linking the Cunningham scandal to Bajagua is irresponsible.
“Everything was done legally, aboveboard and properly to get this project moving forward,” Benedetto said. “No one's being bought here. This is about good government.”
Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Mayfield e-mailed this statement: “The Vice President does not issue government contracts. Government departments, in this case the State Department, issue contracts; therefore, I would refer your inquiry to the State Department.”
Brandt, the State Department's liaison to the commission, did not return calls about the e-mails.
Commission spokeswoman Sally Spener said the only reason Bajagua was chosen to develop the treatment facility was that it had done preliminary studies and could act quickly.
The sewage flowing over the border from Tijuana is currently being treated by a plant in San Ysidro that doesn't meet federal wastewater standards and the commission is under a court order to comply by September 2008.
Bajagua plans to ship the sewage from the plant to a series of aeration ponds in Mexico 12 1?2 miles away, treating it to secondary levels, shipping it back to the U.S. plant and releasing it into the ocean. Some wastewater would be treated to tertiary levels in Mexico, where Bajagua hopes to sell it for commercial use.
Although project estimates range between $600 million and $1 billion, proponents say it's a good deal for taxpayers because the company won't get any federal money unless the cleaned wastewater meets U.S. standards.
“It's a good deal for the environment because finally somebody will have a financial reason to clean up a sewage problem that's been ignored for too long,” said Bilbray, a Republican who is running for Cunningham's former seat in the 50th District.
In 2000, San Diego's congressional delegation joined in a rare bipartisan effort by co-sponsoring a bill Bilbray wrote that paved the way for Bajagua to get the contract. Shortly after the bill passed, Bilbray lost his seat to Democrat Susan Davis. Months after he left office, he became a lobbyist for Bajagua, earning about $35,000 in 2001 to lobby the White House and State Department.
But when Bilbray touted the project at a December 2001 hearing before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, on which Filner still serves, Bilbray did not identify himself as a company lobbyist. He said he was testifying as the bill's author and on behalf of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Recently, Bilbray said he didn't think his ties to Bajagua were relevant to mention at the time because he had been asked to testify as the bill's author.
“I wasn't there because I was being paid, I was there because I had spent 20 years fighting the issue,” said Bilbray, who started his political career as an Imperial Beach councilman.
Bajagua's investors say they have spent $18 million to $20 million since 1994 to advance the project. Federal records show the company has paid about $600,000 in lobbying fees since 1999, including about $340,000 to Hunter's former legislative director, Matthew R. Simmons. He is not related to Jim Simmons, the managing member of Bajagua.
Jim Simmons would disclose only the names of company investors who put in 10 percent or more. He said they include himself, Rancho Santa Fe businessman Enrique Landa, and attorney Irwin Heller. Simmons said none of the investors is or has been an elected official.
Since the mid-1990s, company investors and their family members have donated about $200,000 to national politicians and political action committees, including $10,000 to the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2003. At least $80,000 went to local members of Congress, about $66,000 to Filner alone.
Contributions also were made at state and local levels.
The newly signed development agreement is a key step toward construction of the facility, but negotiations are ongoing, commission spokeswoman Spener said.
The commission must still hammer out specifics of the project by signing at least one more contract with Bajagua and negotiating with Mexico to amend its water treaty with the United States.
Assemblywoman Saldaña called the recent agreement a “delaying tactic” aimed at meeting the latest court-ordered deadline and said it doesn't constitute a binding contract. She said she will keep pushing for secondary treatment on this side of the border, a plan backed by Vargas and state Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny.
“Border residents must continue to insist that a public project be developed with binational input that takes the latest infrastructure and available technology into account,” Saldaña said in a statement.
Filner, citing multiple hearings and opportunities for public comment, said this issue has been debated enough.
“Everybody knew the process and understood what was happening, and there were questions raised,” he said.
Still, the Imperial Beach City Council passed a resolution opposing the project just hours after Bajagua announced the agreement had been signed. And Vargas, who had supported Bajagua since he was a San Diego councilman, withdrew his support last month, when he accused Filner of having a quid pro quo arrangement with the company.
Over the past decade, a cadre of advocates has worked to build support for Bajagua, from the grass-roots level to the Oval Office.
Among them was environmental attorney Robert Simmons, who is no relation to Jim Simmons of Bajagua or lobbyist Matthew R. Simmons.
Robert Simmons had represented the Sierra Club's San Diego chapter on matters relating to the Tijuana sewage problem, and in 2000 he also worked as a paid adviser to Bajagua for six months.
In 2001, he was elected to the club's executive committee. At his first meeting in January 2002, he pushed for support for the Bajagua project.
In February, the committee voted 6-1 to endorse it. But after Saldaña and others objected, the chapter asked the club's International Committee to decide whether the organization should take a position on a project in Mexico.
Richard Miller, the chapter's vice chairman, said that according to minutes of the February meeting, “Simmons stated he had no economic or other interest in Bajagua or conflict of interest.”
Simmons said he disclosed his past relationship with Bajagua the year before he joined the committee, and because he had no “present conflict,” he believed it was appropriate for him to vote.
By April, the International Committee had ruled the organization should remain neutral. Miller said that decision nullified the previous vote.
Nonetheless, the Sierra Club was named as a supporter in a briefing package Jim Simmons sent with a letter to Cheney in October.
In the letter, Jim Simmons thanked the vice president for meeting with him and his colleagues the day before in Roswell, N.M. He also asked for Cheney's help in breaking through roadblocks Bajagua was encountering with the commission.
The briefing package said the Sierra Club's local chapter had voted to endorse the project and that “a similar review is currently underway” by its International Committee.
Recently, Miller called those statements “totally 100 percent misleading.” And he said he still believes Robert Simmons had at least the appearance of a conflict.
“I'm outraged to be honest with you,” he said.
Meanwhile, as new members have joined San Diego's congressional delegation, the bipartisan effort to support the sole-source contract has continued.
In March 2002, Reps. Cunningham, Filner, Hunter, Darrell Issa and Susan Davis signed a letter to Bush asking him to discuss the Bajagua project with Mexican President Vicente Fox at an upcoming meeting.
“We believe this project will represent a major step forward in cross-border relations and environmental cleanup as well as the private financing and execution of much needed infrastructure,” the letter read.
But critics, including Ducheny, say they have little faith the project will fulfill these promises.
“I haven't been convinced that this is realistic, that Mexico is actually going to allow this to occur,” Ducheny said, “And if that's the case, then we need to be pursuing other alternatives as quickly as possible.”
Last week, Mexico's top water official said he liked the idea but needs to see the specific details before giving his support.
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