BAJAGUA NOT RECOGNIZED BY BAJA CALIFORNIA/Border News Agency

Border News Agency/Mexico

Bajagua’s project is not officially recognized

* Consensus must be reached, affirms the State Secretary of Environment

TIJUANA, B.C., May 26, 2006 (AFN). The State Government has not been officially informed about the Bajagua Project, a controversial water treatment scheme to be installed close to El Florido industrial park. The State Secretary of Environment, Enrique Villegas, assured that the project has generated strong disagreement amongst environmentalists of San Diego.

Villegas alleged that so far he has only learned about the water project through the media, nevertheless, the government has not received any notification and therefore he cannot adopt any official position.

This week, the environmentalist group WiLDCOAST declared war on sewage affecting Imperial Beach in the US and calling into question Bajagua’s effectiveness to solve the water pollution problem.

Wildcoast accused Enrique Landa of buying off American political support through “Legal Bribery,” or providing campaign contributions to elected officials to receive government contracts.

The activists affirmed that Bajagua lacks the capacity to solve the problem and it would only serve the water treatment requirements of the industrial estate, which Landa owns in El Florido.

Villegas said that the funding issue should be clarified in brief, since a judge has ordered its prompt resolution, but he also added that since all this process must take place in the US, the state government cannot intervene in this matter.

“We prefer a condensed (sic) solution, and we would need to assess all elements, but as long as we do not receive concrete information about the project, we cannot give an opinion”, explained the State Secretary of Environment.