Growth Is Real Issue

The big shoot-out over the issue of secondary treatment for San Diego sewage, between the Environmental Protection Agency and the group of present and former Scripps scientists put together by City Councilman Bruce Henderson has taken place at the OK Corral, and the outcome was never in doubt.

The EPA had all the big guns, and Henderson’s scientists were shooting blanks. No relevant facts were produced by them to justify not converting to secondary treatment as required by the EPA.

And, although they were polite in not admitting it, it was perfectly obvious that the representatives from the EPA had heard this same bellyaching a hundred times before from other pollution generators.

It doesn’t take a scientist to know that the Earth is a finite environment. You can’t continue to add more and more pollution to it without ultimately serious consequences, and you cannot continue to grow as San Diego has without generating more pollution.

Henderson’s group of scientists were able to come up with only one valid point in their arguments: Removal of more sludge from the sewage, if San Diego continues to grow at its present rate, will create problems of disposal. The key phrase here is continued growth. Is it too much to hope for that Mr. Henderson might now consider resigning his membership in the pro-growth majority bloc on the City Council? Yes, it probably is.

The $2 billion or $3 billion that San Diego will have to pay to correct this sewage discharge problem is only a down payment on the debt which it has accumulated over the past years during its pro-growth frenzy. Other problems at least as large (and still awaiting a final price tag) are solid waste disposal, traffic congestion, water shortages, pollution of streams and wetlands, air pollution, crime, schools, and supplementation or replacement of capital facilities--all problems caused by growth.

Unfortunately, it is we, the citizens of San Diego, who will ultimately have to pay for the mistakes made by this and former city councils.

I believe that San Diego, and every pollution-generating group, has the moral obligation to limit its polluting effluent to a fixed amount. The only way this can be done is to ensure that the increasing amount of sewage which you discharge is cleaner. The oceans are a big place to hide a pollution problem, but ultimately they are not that big.

I hope that San Diego will live up to EPA’s standards and not have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a hopefully environmentally cleaner 21st Century.

CHARLES J. DIETZ

Del Mar