SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) – San Diego Congressional representatives on Monday urged the Navy to study the impacts of sewage spills from Mexico.
The U.S. Navy is planning to build a one-billion-dollar SEAL training center south of Silver Strand Beach.
Congresswoman Susan Davis, who is the Senior House Armed Service Committee Member, called on the U.S. Navy to draft a report on the impacts of the millions of gallons of sewage spewed from the Tijuana River into the Pacific Ocean as part of the one billion-dollar national security assessment training center on the strip south of the Silver Strand State Beach.
Democratic Congressman Scott Peters said the sewage spills are a bipartisan effort from political leaders in San Diego County to Washington D.C.
“We need to get these bills passed. We need to get this into NAFTA. We need to protect the Border Patrol, the SEALS and our surfers and our kids,” said Peters.
Sewage spills have been an ongoing issue for decades, but erupted when 250 million gallons of sewage spewed into the Pacific Ocean in 2017.
“The Navy is very concerned about SEAL’s training and we want to make sure that we invest a lot of money in these SEALS,” said Peters.
The cities of Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and the Port of San Diego filed a lawsuit.
Republic and Democratic representatives and Senator Diane Feinstein have worked on monitoring, allocating grants, and given $10 million for equipment.
Letters have also been written calling on investigations and expressing that the problem should not be left up to Mexico to fix.
“This is a huge issue. It’s a huge issue for our tourism, for our residents, for the Border Patrol, for the SEALS – we have to get this corrected. It’s not right,” said Congressman Peters.
The Navy has not responded to News 8’s request for comment as of this writing.
Last month, Mexico said it would dedicate $4 million towards sewage and waste water infrastructure.
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