Here’s a photo illustrating a certain type of successful idea: a ‘natural’ wastewater treatment project in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico.
In the foreground of the photo, we see the well-engineered, geometric pools of the Las Arenitas Wastewater Treatment Plant, built in 2007, to help deal with wastewater from Mexicali’s growing metropolitan region.
A failed solution.
Soon after it began operation, it became apparent that the plant was already over-capacity. The wastewater was not treated up to standards suitable for human contact — and the poorly treated water was flowing into the Hardy River, a tributary of the Colorado River that was “popular for hunting, fishing, boating, and swimming.” Owners of homes and vacation camps along the river objected — to the smell, to health risks, and to damaged property values and tourism businesses.
Just beyond the sewer treatment plant, in the photo, we can see the Las Arenitas Treatment Wetlands — a creative solution based on natural plant and animal life.
From the Sonoran Institute website:
Amid this mess, Francisco Zamora Arroyo, director of our Colorado River Delta Legacy Program, saw both a solution and an opportunity. “In 2008, we approached CESPM with a plan to create a wetland next to the treatment plant that would provide additional treatment capacity, while also enhancing the river system and the local economy,” he says.
The idea was the wetland would acts as a biofilter, removing sediment and pollutants from the partially treated wastewater. Natural chemical processes and microorganisms living in the wetland’s vegetation would break down organic materials over time and improve the water quality.
We began construction in 2009. The treatment wetland is now 70 percent completed — and it’s working. The wetland is helping the state water authority and the city of Mexicali meet water quality standards at a lower cost than expanding the plant itself, and the improved conditions of the Hardy River are boosting property values and tourism and recreation businesses in the area.
The Sonoran Institute has been a participant in numerous efforts to improve the way humans interact with Mother Nature — particularly, perhaps, the way we interact with our water resources. The Las Arenitas Wetlands project, for example, involved a promise from the Mexican governments to allow at least 8,000 acre-feet of treated water annually to flow into the Hardy River, and from there, into the Colorado River.
A small step towards enhancing the Colorado River — one of the most abused rivers in America.
Back in 2006, the Pagosa Springs community was poised to become a player in that abuse of the Colorado River. Two local water districts — the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) and the San Juan Water Conservancy District (SJWCD) — had obtained the legal right to extract up to 35,000 acre feet from the San Juan River and store it in a to-be-constructed reservoir in the Dry Gulch valley.
Like the Hardy River in Mexico, the San Juan is a tributary of the Colorado River.
PAWSD and SJWCD had obtained that legal right by claiming that Pagosa Springs’ population was going to increase rather astronomically over the next couple of decades, and that we absolutely needed a 35,000 acre-foot reservoir to serve the hordes of people who were going to be moving into our community. According to water engineer Steve Harris, PAWSD was going to be delivering 6,500 acre-feet of drinking water annually to its thirsty customers by the year 2020.
When this estimate of 6,500 acre-feet was made in 2003, PAWSD was delivering about 1,200 acre-feet of water to its customers. In hindsight, the estimate was a bit on the high side. As of 2018, PAWSD was delivering about 1,300 acre-feet of treated water to customers — one-fifth the amount projected by engineer Steve Harris.
A few things have taken place since 2006. The population of Pagosa Springs has grown modestl, while water demand has remained flat. The plans for the Dry Gulch Reservoir — priced in 2009 at $357 million, to be funded mainly by Pagosa taxpayers — have been shelved (at least temporarily.) The state of Colorado has adopted an official Colorado Water Plan calling for millions of dollars in new water infrastructure investment, including numerous new or expanded reservoirs and pipelines that would extract even more water out of the Colorado River.
We don’t have much ability to influence the state of Colorado’s water planning. What we might be able to influence, however, are the plans that involve PAWSD and SJWCD. Our local citizens sit on those two quasi-municipal boards, and they may be able to make decisions that serve both Archuleta County — and the Colorado River, as a whole, living organism.
Take another look at this photo:
We can choose, if we want, to focus on the sewer treatment ponds in the foreground, or on the innovative ‘Treatment Wetlands’ nearby. But when you take in the entire photo, you can perceive the environment in which these man-made facilities exist.
A desert. A place of little rainfall. A place where water is very hard to come by. This is northern Mexico, and the landscape and environment is very similar to most of the American Southwest — the desert through which the once-mighty Colorado River runs, on its way to the Gulf of California.
In 2003, with a burning desire to build a new water storage facility in Archuleta County, the boards of two local water districts asked a Durango water engineer to project the population of Pagosa Springs — and to project the amount of drinking water we would need by the year 2040.
Steve Harris told us that our county population, in 2040, would consist of 52,370 full-time residents. (Four times our current population.) Based upon that estimate, PAWSD and SJWCD spent $10 million in taxpayer funds to purchase the Running Iron Ranch, northeast of downtown Pagosa Springs, as the site for the proposed Dry Gulch Reservoir.
We now know, we will almost certainly not have a population of 52,370 by the year 2040.
But we — the taxpayers of Archuleta County — we’re still paying for principal and interest on the loan for Dry Gulch. For the next 20 years.