Water Theft At The Border?

New case numbers were a bit down on Wednesday: San Diego County health officials reported 264 new COVID-19 cases and seven new deaths. Five new outbreaks have been reported, for a total of 24 active outbreaks in seven days. Dr. Wilma Wooten, San Diego County’s public health officer, said the new outbreaks occurred in a restaurant, a healthcare facility, a gym, a daycare, and a spa. Hospitalizations are increasing, Wooten said, but the number of ICU patients has remained consistent. COVID-19-related ICU hospitalizations currently total 166. *** Unemployment in San Diego County has dropped to 14.3%, but is likely to start increasing again due to public health orders closing certain businesses. That’s according to a new report released yesterday by the San Diego Association of Governments. The report found that while unemployment has slowly but steadily declined from the high of 25% the week of May 9, county health orders on Tuesday closing bars, indoor dining at restaurants and indoor business at zoos, museums, movie theaters and other businesses will likely take a toll on workers in the region. *** From KPBS, I’m Kinsee Morlan and you’re listening to San Diego News Matters, a podcast powered by our reporters, producers and editors. It’s Thursday, July 9. Stay with me for more of the local news you need. The Chula Vista Police Department is broadening its use of drones. KPBS science and technology reporter Shalina Chatlani says some academics are skeptical of these devices, but officers say they will be as transparent as possible. AMBI: BUZZ Chula Vista Police Department Lieutenant Jim Horst fires up a small autonomous drone. NAT: this drone has collision avoidance. I'm gonna tell it to hit the canopy… Horst says this drone is one of nearly two dozen- including larger drones, the officers have been using as part of a pilot program under the Federal Aviation Administration. Now they can fly the small drones outside their line of sight. Horst says the department sees drones as a de-escalation tool. By having the drones officers can have more information and they can have visual information prior to getting there on how to handle that call. Though some academics, like Lily Irani, a communications and technology expert at UC San Diego, say video technology doesn't mean human bias goes away. Irani: Say you're getting a call from someone acting erratic...Ok so what type of visual symbols are you going to look for to discern the difference between dangerous and non dangerous? Lieutenant Horst acknowledged drones aren't a solution for that. But he says they give officers more information, and officers are still held accountable for their decisions. Drone data is available online, video is kept securely as evidence. *** A new Trump Administration policy would force international college students out of the country if they don't attend in-person classes this fall. Critics see it as part of a broad effort by the administration to force colleges to reopen during the Covid Pandemic. KPBS Education Reporter Joe Hong spoke with university administrators about the rule. UC San Diego has more than fifty-six hundred international students whose futures could be threatened by a sudden change in policy from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. It requires international students to take at least one in-person or hybrid class in the Fall. Students who can't comply will be forced to transfer to another college or leave the United States. Dulce Dorado is the director of the International Students & Programs Office at UC San Diego. She said her office will do whatever it takes to protect its international students. DULCEDORADO.mp4 00:05:10:11 DULCE DURADO /// INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS DIRECTOR Our quarter doesn't begin until late september so there's still some time in terms of the university really trying to assess what enrollment looks like and what course offerings need to be adjusted, and what additional course offerings need to be made. Both UC San Diego and San Diego State University issued statements Tuesday that criticized the new rule for creating confusion for students amid the global pandemic. SDSU officials advised students not to make any sudden decisions or changes to their academic schedules and to not make plans to leave the country. *** Monuments to controversial historical figures are being removed essentially overnight in California and across the nation ... It’s happening following the demonstrations against police brutality and the historical oppression of people of color. But that's not the case with every landmark. Cap Radio's Scott Rodd visited a remote mountaintop in rural California to report on a renaming effort that has been going on for years. [Notes:BODY 3:47] [Notes:ambi…hiking…] The hike to Jeff Davis Peak in Alpine County doesn't follow a clear trail. So, I find myself dodging low-lying brush and stubborn patches of snow to reach the top. The peak is named after the president of the Confederate States...Historians say that likely came from residents of a nearby mining village. Many were immigrant sympathizers of the Confederacy. A campaign launched in 2017 to rename the landmark…but it would soon get stuck in the molasses of overlapping bureaucracies. Community members first debated the issue at an Alpine County board meeting. WATERFALL-3: "These landmarks raise useful questions in the minds of young people who see them..." WATERFALL-2: "I don't think that history really needs to be changed or rewritten." (:12) WATERFALL-1: "Alpine County Confederate history should go into the museum. It doesn't need to be flaunted from the mountain top..." (:09) County supervisor Ron Hames had a novel take on the issue. ZAPPA-1: "I actually renamed it 35 years ago when I found out what the name was. I renamed it after a Frank Zappa concert…the concert was called, "It's Frickin' Great To Be Alive." (:11) Frank Zappa actually used a different "F" word…one that's not suitable for County Board meetings or public radio. But Hames went on to make a larger point: Descriptions of physical landmarks change all the time. He says Spanish missionaries had names for what they found in California. And before them, so too did Native Americans. JIM-1: "We had a name for every peak, every stream, every creek, ditch puddle—everything." (:08) Irvin Jim is chairman of the Washoe Tribe's Hung-A-Lel-Ti [Notes:hung-ah-LEHL-tee] community. Alpine County asked the tribe to recommend a new name. So, Jim went to his great aunt, a Washoe elder, who suggested "Da‐ek Dow Go‐et" [Notes:day-ECK dow GO-et] …which means "saddle between two points." JIM-1.5: "For us to have the ability to start putting names—Washoe names—the way they should be, back into these places is really important." (:14) The county board approved the name. And then it went to the state. But … the California Advisory Committee of Geographic Names rejected it — at first. The committee found the Washoe phrase hard to pronounce. Plus, they said, it had no local association. Jim has some thoughts on this. JIM-2: "Typical white society thing to say. This is our homeland. Over 10,000 years of being here. They don't understand--they don't know." As for Jefferson Davis's association with Alpine County? Well, you'd be hard-pressed to find one. In fact, Davis vehemently opposed the creation of California altogether...because it would be a free state without slaves. The committee eventually gave their approval. They declined an interview request, but said they take renaming landmarks seriously, and are scrupulous with their decision-making. That's one reason the process can take so long. RUNYON-1: "It may sound straightforward to say, 'Well we want to change a name or apply a new name.'" Jennifer Runyon is with the federal Board of Geographic names...yet another agency that has to sign off on the change. RUNYON-2: "There are just so many moving parts. It really is a matter of getting input from so many different entities." She says the proposal will likely appear on the board's July calendar—the final hurdle to rename the peak. [Notes:AMBI…transition back to peak, creek running…] On the mountain's eastern slope, melting snow forms a brook that carves below the treeline. It's crystal clear, it's frigid cold—and it's name is Jeff Davis Creek. Some residents have contacted the federal Board of Geographic Names to ask whether it will be renamed too. But the process for that hasn't even started. Cap Radio's Scott Rodd. *** An independent audit of Baja California’s water agency has found that many international companies with operations in Baja California have paid for only a fraction of the water they’ve used for years and have dumped waste without approval into the overburdened Tijuana sewage system...Meanwhile... water agency officials looked the other way. That story and more after the break. California is moving toward a future when plastics will help build the roads people drive on. KPBS Environment Reporter Erik Anderson has details. PLASTICROADS 1A 06:00:29 -- 06:00:37 “You can see that we already put point nine kilograms into this.” Chris Sparks is bagging little granules of plastic waste. It is the key ingredient for his company’s asphalt. Asphalt that could be widely used in California, and possibly the rest of the nation in just a couple of years. State Senator Ben Hueso is carrying Senate Bill 12-38 to set state standards for the product. Ben Hueso, State Senator (d) PLASTICROADS 1B 05:45:10 – 05:45:29 “Through this bill we are seeking to expand current state efforts to reduce the cost of road construction and increase the strength and durability of our roads, all the while finding alternative uses for waste plastic otherwise destined for a landfill.” The idea for the product came from High School students and was advanced by the local office of the Macrebur company. *** There's a new wrinkle in the decades-old story of sewage from Tijuana contaminating cities and beaches inSan Diego’s South Bay. An independent audit of Baha's water agency has found that many international corporations in Baja -- like Walmart and Coca Cola -- have not paid their full water bills for years and have dumped sewage into the overburdened Tijuana system while utility officials look the other way. For more on the alleged fraud between the water agency and international corporations, Midday Edition’s Maureen Cavanaugh talked to San Diego Union-Tribune border reporter Wendy Frye. What's the magnitude of the fraud being alleged. They're still conducting the audit, but they have estimated that they have missed out on approximately 49 point $4 million in water fees during the last five years, which is the most that they're allowed to go back retroactively and try to collect, and how many corporations are involved more than 450. Speaker 1: 01:16 And you know, some of them are smaller companies that are our cross border companies are us companies, but they're just on the smaller side. And then there's these very big corporations that are recognizable to everyone like Coca Cola and home Depot and Samsung. Now, what did the audit find out about how this scheme worked? So the auditor says that these companies would basically work with the state water agency, employees to hook up water to their site, to their facility, um, without it being detected or without the full amount of water that they were using, being detected. And then to also cover up that they were doing that they would also install LANDESK Stein drainage or plumbing of systems to drain the wastewater away from their site so that it wouldn't be detected how much they were discharging either. Some of the, as you say, big names involved in this, I had a rather complicated systems. Speaker 1: 02:19 Apparently you write Coca Cola connected to water in the parking lot. How did that work? Yeah, that is what the auditor is saying. And he even shows video of when they go to do the inspection at the site and how they kind of had to look around and then find this clandestine connection. There's also another big company, that's a industrial developer. So they develop sites that the macular daughter, companies come in and use and they're accused of, um, even going to the trouble of enlisting the help of a nearby church that was across the street and they dug the pipes and the drain and the system underneath the ground. And then through the, of this church too, to avoid detection is what the auditor is alleging. And how little have some of these companies been paying for water? So Coca Cola, according to the auditor has only been paying the state of Baja, California, five liters of water per second. Speaker 1: 03:18 So it's the amount that one single person living in a very small house or like a one room apartment would use typically is what the water investigators say. And apparently Hyundai hasn't paid any water bill, right? They went back trying to find when they connect to the water, the water discharge rights, all these documents that should be somehow in the system. And they could not find anything for Hyundai, although they do have running water at their site obviously, and drainage at their site. So a have not been able to figure out how that happens, but that is what prompted the governor to say that he believes obviously they would have had to have been working with the state agency back when they set up their systems for this to have gone undetected for all these years. What are the repercussions for the water agency officials allegedly involved in this? Speaker 1: 04:12 So about 80 have either been suspended. I think about 40, about half of that have actually been terminated. Um, and there are all varying, I guess, stages of their internal investigations with what happened. They're going back through the accounts who had, what account, who was entering, what into the system at what time and all that stuff. And having some of the people that were charged with going out and investigating exactly this type of behavior are now no longer working in those roles. And I suppose the suspicion is that these officials were taking bribes from these companies. Is that right? Yeah. Although there hasn't been anything that proves that, that any money exchanged hands specifically from one specific person from one specific company, it's the question that the governor and the state officials are raising is, you know, why, why would they be allowing all these systems to fail all over the city, all the pipes to collapse when they could be collecting this money? Speaker 1: 05:13 Um, so that's sort of the question and they're still investigating. Now. What's been the response from Coca Cola and the other big corporations involved. So, so far I have not heard much from any corporations specifically to us. However, they have been responding to state investigators. They have been trying to work with the state water agency to sort this out, to figure out these bills. And one of the things that they've said over and over again is, you know, we paid the bill that came to us. You know, we, when the bill came, we paid it. And so that's, that's something that's sort of still being sorted out as who, who had, what role I'm a Coca Cola. It says they actually have their own wastewater treatment system. They're on their site. Um, they're battler in Baja, California. They say that they're recycling their own water and that they have federal rights to do that. Speaker 1: 06:02 So, and that's another thing that, uh, the role of the federal water agency, they kind of go is, um, still sort of undefined. Like it's just not clear in the law. And that's something that some of the state legislators are talking about trying to more clearly define what the role of the federal water agency is an oversight of all of this. Well, apparently Baha's governor has vowed to recoup some of this lost money. What's been his reaction to the scandal. He has been bowing as you know, to stop the sewage from coming across the border into Imperial beach and back, I think sometime in June, he said before the end of this month, we're not going to be spilling another drop of water over, onto the beach of an Imperial beach. And when he, when he had his swearing in ceremony, his inauguration to take office as governor, he said, it's going to be six months and there will be no more sewage spilled into Imperial beach. Speaker 1: 06:57 And so this we're coming up on that six months right now, and obviously June has passed now. So he's promising that this is the way he's going to resolve the sewage situation at the border. And he's been very adamant about he's going to collect the money from these companies. There, there have been some, some, some news articles in Spanish language media in Tijuana where some of these companies or representatives, people who say the representatives of the company have been talking a name, but they're saying that they feel like they're being extorted by the governor. That he's just sort of looking for a way to finance this project or to finance, stopping the flow of sewage across the border. Obviously that's sort of a scandal that's playing out in the local media, but so far they have not put their name to and their company's name to what they're saying specifically, what kind of connection is being made between this Baja water scandal and the ongoing effort to stop the flow of sewage from Tijuana into San Diego. Speaker 1: 07:59 The governor is saying, and the state officials that are, are in his cabinet and his administration are saying, if they collected this money from these big corporations, we're actually, you know, discharging a lot more water than, than, than the normal users. They would have the money to pay for this upgrades, the infrastructure. And it wouldn't stress the system so much because we would know how much sewage is coming in, that they need to treat. And how much to divert. And that was U-T border reporter Wendy Frye talking with Midday Edition’s Maureen Cavanaugh. For more interviews like this one, subscribe to Midday Edition wherever you get your podcasts. That’s it for today. Thanks for lending us your ears.