State lawmaker refutes official’s statment.

A state lawmaker said a top official pressed assembly members who oppose infrastructure projects through the private-public agreements to vote in favor of such proposals and incur additional debt.

Assemblyman Luis Moreno, with the conservative Social Encounter Party, said that the official, far from providing scientific and technical arguments to defend those projects, especially the desalination plant in Rosarito Beach, Secretary of Infrastructure and Urban Development Manuel Guevara questioned those lawmakers who had voted against those projects.

“As no reasoning and studies had been presented to convince us from voting for the agreements, the state attempts to press us to vote for those projects,” Moreno said. “The state wants to push us and turn us into accomplices of putting our future, children and grandchildren at risk.”

The lawmaker recalled that Otay Water District Board Chairman Mark Robay said the agency has plans to purchase between 15.4 and 46.2 acre-feet of water per day from the desalination plant.

Such project has been approved by the U.S. government, Moreno said.

Secretary Guevara said during a legislative hearing that the state has no plans to sell water to the United States.

“The state insists in lying to Baja California residents by saying that all water from desalinization plants will serve Tijuana and Rosarito Beach residents,” Moreno added. “Baja California residents will pay for that water that will be transported to another country by a 66 percent increase in water rates as Tijuana Public Utilities Commission general manager has said.”