The Stench of Sewage Can Be Smelled a Long Way

Imperial Beach, CA -- The smell, in fact, stretches all the way from the southwest corner of the country to the White House. Vice President Cheney, it turned out, intervened to obtain a non-bid, monopoly contract on cleaning up the sewage that pours from Tijuana into coastal waters off San Diego. The company which got the contract, Bajagua, had no experience in treating waste water; its plan was opposed by the State Department, EPA, the Justice Department. When Bill Clinton was in the White House his Office of Management and Budget rejected the plan as unworkable and illegal. But all this opposition melted away after Bush came into office and Cheney intervened on Bajaqua's behalf. Now the project appears to be very far behind schedule, and its not clear it will ever be finished. The project was approved without a budget, and now appears likely, whether finished or not, to cost between $580 million and $780 million. (Cheney had help from recently announced Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter.)

This story has received a little coverage from the San Diego Press, but has been bouncing around the Internet for quite a while, with allegations as well of pressure from Democratic Congressman Bob Filner and newly elected Representative Brian Bilbray. Yesterday the story made the front pages of the Wall Street Journal. Back when Bill Clinton was President, there was a regulation called the "Responsible Contractor" rule which was designed to minimize the awarding of government contracts to unqualified contractors or those who had violated the law. Bush first suspended, and then repealed it, but with Henry Waxman as head of the Investigations and Oversight Committee, expect to be learning a lot more ugly stories about federal contracting under the Bush administration. (And Congress might consider bringing the Responsible Contractor principle back, this time as a statute, with some real teeth.)

One has to wonder whether all this has anything to do with the recent spate of firings of US Attorneys, including Carol Lam, who investigated the "Duke" Cunningham case and would have been in charge of the investigation into Bajaqua's alleged influence peddling.