Residents and advocates have long asked Coronado to declare a state of emergency in the ongoing Tijuana sewage crisis.
But doing so is a legal mechanism that is not appropriate, city leaders say. Instead, the Coronado City Council on Sept. 3 passed a proclamation of urgency in the matter, calling it an “environmental catastrophe” whose total cost could exceed $1 billion.
“The declaration of emergency is a legal tool that allows cities to seek resources and circumvent certain government bureaucracy to solve a problem specific to their jurisdiction, under their control,” Mayor Richard Bailey said. “This issue doesn’t apply. It simply doesn’t. If it did, we would have declared a state of emergency 25, 30 years ago.”
City Manager Tina Friend said municipalities declare states of emergency when they need to act quickly. For example, after the Jan. 22 storm this year brought flooding to the city, Coronado declared an emergency.
In doing so, the city was able to waive certain requirements in building the Parker Pump Station bypass. The project was completed in days, when it usually would have taken months.
Friend said Coronado cannot fix the sewage crisis: The failing infrastructure that dumps millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Pacific Ocean daily is under the governance of both Mexico and the U.S. International Water and Boundary Commission, a federal office.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has made a similar argument in his refusal to declare an emergency.
The argument, then, is that declaring an emergency would be purely symbolic.
But critics said symbolism is exactly what they want.
“I think going public with a state of emergency sends a message,” said Laura Wilkinson Sinton, who is running for city council, during public comment. “It sends a message to the media, it sends a message to the governor’s office. We are the voice that is missing in this chorus. We need to step up and defend our city. And even if it’s symbolic in nature, it will make a difference.”
Amy Steward, another city council candidate, also spoke in favor of declaring an emergency. She argued that by declaring an emergency, the city could request state or federal assistance and potentially access more funds.
City Council Member Casey Tanaka was most amenable to the declaration, saying that while it would likely be an “empty effort,” the symbolism does carry value.
“Isn’t our whole argument that we are in a state of emergency?” he asked. “Doesn’t it make us kind of foolish if we tell everyone it’s an emergency, but, point of order, we won’t declare one ourselves? Weren’t we all at the beach (during a Stop the Sewage protest) criticizing Governor Newsom for not declaring an emergency?”
Tanaka suggested the city use data to show how the matter is too big for Coronado to solve in an emergency declaration.
“What’s the downside?” he asked.
But other council members said they preferred to focus on work that would make a tangible difference. They were adamant: They do view the matter as an emergency, but do not have the proper jurisdiction to declare a legal emergency. Bailey, alongside Council Members John Duncan and Carrie Downey, highlighted the advocacy work the city has done in the US capitol in recent years.
In 2018, the cities of Imperial Beach and Chula Vista, as well as the San Diego Unified Port District, sued the IBWC over the ongoing crisis. Coronado was pressured to join as well. Downey said she and the rest of the council knew that the lawsuit would not be successful, and that joining it would be a waste.
Instead, the city hired a federal lobbyist. Growing relationships with leaders in Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency helped to spark action from the agency that actually controls the IBWC: the federal government.
“The people who can do something about (the sewage crisis) is our federal government,” Downey said. “It is a government to government fight. The mayor is right. We’ve been punching above our weight class for years.”
Last year, Bailey and Duncan traveled to Washington, D.C., on multiple occasions to lobby Congress to include funding to solve the crisis. The federal government ultimately allocated an additional $156 million toward the issue in this year’s budget.
Council members said that the fight to solve the sewage crisis has been a team effort between other cities and their leadership and citizen advocates.
“I was not always confident that we were going to get that funding,” Duncan said. “Other peoples’ efforts, like Capt. (Dan’l) Steward’s, and all the citizens’, mattered. That was all the result of work on the ground in Washington.”
During public comment, residents asked the city to consider formally declaring an emergency. The Port of San Diego and the County of San Diego have both issued such declarations. Duncan asked what doing so would accomplish, specifying that he was not trying to be argumentative, but instead, was looking for actionable tasks.
“If you give us something else that we can do, specifically, that’s an act, it is likely that we will do it and we will pay for it,” Duncan said.
Tanaka said he would entertain declaring an emergency, but the rest of the council agreed with Friend’s assessment that it would do nothing. The resolution, which can be read in full here, passed unanimously.
“I understand the symbolism of it,” City Council Member Mike Donovan said, “but I don’t think the value is there in carrying this forward.”
