SAN DIEGO  -  The commission responsible for cleaning runaway sewage along the U.S.-Mexico border says it will upgrade an existing government wastewater plant in San Diego instead of paying a developer to build a new plant in Tijuana.

Thursday's decision by the International Boundary and Water Commission appears to end a decade-long gambit by private Bajagua to win millions in U.S. contracts to pump wastewater back to Mexico.

The commission is under federal court order to raise Mexican wastewater to U.S. standards by September but is seeking an extension. It says in a statement that it hopes the expansion of the existing plant in the San Ysidro area will be finished by January 2011.

Congress has already approved $66 million for the project.

(AP)