Bob Filner: “Mr. Chairman, not to beat a dead horse or a dead sewage system, as the case may be, I do rise in strong opposition to…”

“Mr. Chairman, not to beat a dead horse or a dead sewage system, as the case may be, I do rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by my friend the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone]. This amendment raises the possibility that San Diego will be forced to waste, yes, waste, billions of dollars to change a sewage system that this Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency, a Federal District Court judge, the San Diego chapter of the Sierra Club, the world renowned scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, have all agreed does no harm and in fact may benefit the marine environment. Mr. Chairman, the one-size-fits-all requirement of the Clean Water Act just does not make sense for San Diego. It does not make scientific sense, it does not make economic sense, nor does it make environmental sense. It is simply a bureaucratic requirement to provide a level of treatment that is unnecessary, costly, and provides no beneficial impact to the marine environment. This is not simply my personal opinion. The option, as we stated over and over again, is stated by scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and from the National Academy of Sciences. It is supported by reams of scientific data collected over the years. These studies have shown there is no degradation of water quality or the ecology of the ocean due to the discharge of the plant's chemically enhanced treated waste water.”