BREAKING: Issa takes lead in challenging massive cost-overruns, lack of accountability in decades-long Tijuana sewage cleanup project

Escondido – Congressman Darrell Issa (CA-48) has sent a letter to the Commissioner of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) pointing out unacceptable cost overruns, non-disclosure of deferred maintenance, and the Commission's unacceptable guesswork in its new demands for hundreds of millions of dollars from Congress and taxpayers.
 
“I enthusiastically support the completion of this vital project – but we can’t ignore our obligations to pursue accountability for taxpayers. We simply cannot overlook IBWC’s failure to oversee the proper maintenance and management of this facility and its unsupported requests for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding with no end in sight,” said Issa.
 
In addition, the letter states:
 
“Only last May, IBWC announced publicly that there were substantial deferred maintenance needs at the South Bay facility, amounting to more than $150 million in additional costs. Because the deferred maintenance was not promptly addressed and disclosed to Congress, the expansion of the plant’s treatment capabilities is now at risk.
 
“Such negligence prompted my office to initiate an investigation to understand why these maintenance needs were not previously shared and to better understand the changes needed to ensure these problems are not repeated moving forward. Unfortunately, the briefing you provided not only gave us no confidence in the initial 2020 cost estimate of $300 million, you also admitted that IBWC never engaged in any real cost estimation analysis, and could not provide any clear rationale behind a request for essentially twice as much funding. Finally, we learned that IBWC never reviewed several years of previous maintenance reports provided by the facility contractor.”
 
The full letter can be found here.
 
Watch Congressman Issa’s remarks on the matter in an interview with KUSI here.