President Bush's 2008 budget includes $66 million for an upgrade of sewage treatment on the San Diego-Tijuana border, but none of the money will go to the proposed Bajagua project. KPBS's Alan Ray reports the money would be spent instead to improve an existing treatment plant in San Ysidro.
Opponents of the $170 million Bajagua project say the lack of federal money will probably assure that the facility planned near the confluence of the Tijuana and Alamar rivers in Mexico will not be built.
Bajagua's planners say their facility could more than double the amount of sewage treated by the San Ysidro plant -- which has never met federal clean water requirements. And they say Bajagua would reduce water pollution form Mexico and provide reclaimed water for Tijuana.
Last year, it was reported that Vice President Dick Cheney had pushed the federal government to adopt a no-bid contract with Bajagua. But an opponent of the plant says lack of money in the new budget shows "a real breadth of skepticism" about it.
