SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Ariz. — Frank Fisher pointed out that, where the Nogales International wastewater treatment plant ends, is where the water of the Santa Cruz River also flows above ground.
“The (river) downstream... is there because of the outflow that we send out from this plant," Fisher, public affairs chief for the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, said.
The IBWC runs the international facility, the only plant based in the U.S. treating water from both sides of the shared border. 20% of the wastewater comes from Arizona; the remaining 80% is from Sonora, Mexico.
Presently, the plant is designed to treat 14.7 million gallons of water each day, but Fisher said they regularly run at almost 120% of their capacity.
"You have a lot of equipment working," Fisher said. "Sometimes, you have to take some of that equipment offline to repair it. If you don’t have redundancy, if you don’t have spare equipment, it can really cause a problem in the plant.”
This September, the IBWC began rolling out a plan to rehabilitate the facility. Commission leaders awarded two contracts, totaling more than $1 million, to replace crucial pieces of equipment like pumps and flow meters.
US-IBWC leaders have more plans on their drawing board, including adding:
- A fourth tank known as a wastewater clarifier
- A bio-reactor chamber that can support the bacteria which consumes any pollutants in that water
- A return activated sludge (RAS) pump that moves any settled sludge and balance the clarifier
- A new polymer separation system to sort out solids from liquids
All of these fixes would cost around $40 million, according to the US-IBWC.
“Most of this plant is running fine," Fisher said.
"It’s juts those crucial pieces of equipment that have been used and used and used and not replaced. We want to be proactive. We want to do this now.”
To get the $40 million needed for their planned rehabilitation, US-IBWC officials need to convince the U.S. Congress of the importance of this rehabilitation.
Any issues within the plant, Fisher said, can then trickle into the vital river.
“We feel it is a sacred responsibility to keep this plant going," Fisher said, "and maintain the high quality of water that goes into the Santa Cruz river. That water also recharges the aquifers in Santa Cruz and Pima Counties."
