GrokSurf's San Diego

Last October 14 the city of San Diego filed a lawsuit against numerous parties that it considered responsible for payment of cleanup costs for extensive contamination of San Diego Bay. At the time, San Diego CityBeat noted that the city had been in the midst of mediated settlement discussions, asking why would a lawsuit be filed if a settlement was in the works?

That was a good question. Today’s U-T news that the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board is proposing to let the polluters off the hook for 86% of the contamination originally targeted certainly marginalizes the lawsuit. Inexplicably, the Union-Tribune article about this says “Critics contend that the new approach reflects a common tactic by industry: threatening litigation and stalling costly environmental projects until new, more business-friendly regulators take office. ”

A new approach by industry? On the contrary, this proposal seems to be a capitulation to industrial polluters and it would render the nearly-bankrupt city’s lawsuit against the polluters, um, bankrupt.

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