The Hstantec and PCL Construction design design team detailed the $ 600 million expected expansion of the South Bay Waste Water Waste Plant in San Diego, California, a project that has recently been followed rapidly due to Tijuana’s cross -border waste flows, Mexico.
Michael Watson, senior vice president and projects leading water to Statec and Jeff Newman, PCL operations, said at a public meeting held by the United States Section of the International Boundary Commission and water that had validated 50 million daily gallons. First there will be an incremental increase of 100 days of the capacity of the plant from 25 mgd to 35 mgd. This project should be completed on August 28, said PCL and Stantec.
Watson and Newman said that the project would include a new integrated head, a new chemical, two additional primary sedimentation deposits, 10 new secondary sedimentation tanks, seven new activated sludge tanks, a new system and a sludge storage system and a new 12 kV electric building with new switching equipment and new San Diego Gas & Electric transformers.
“In collaboration with PCL, we will work hard to provide more perfect expansion of plants. We believe that the repairs and changes we are making will make a measurable difference now and in the future,” said Watson.
The North -American Commissioner takes the hard line
Nut Luck U.S. Commissioner Chad Mcintosh told local Forum officials and attendees that even after the expansion, Mexico would continue to press to stop wastewater and the chemical flows of the cross-border to the Tijuana River, which ended in the Pacific Ocean near the South Bay Community of the Imperial Bay.
“What has been happening in recent decades has been and is unacceptable,” said Mcintosh. “The impacts you have experienced from the Mexican wastewater that came, which have been on the border, are unacceptable. The smells, the beach closures, the aerosols, everything is unacceptable. You have spent a lot.”
McIntosh said he became aware of the problem when he was an attached commissioner of the acting environmental protection agency during the first Trump administration. He said he was shocked by the lack of progress of the cross problem and promised attendees that the expansion of the South Bay plant would begin soon.
The officials of the meeting said that some of the pipes that are part of the international collector project that sent wastewater to both the south bay floor and the flag -pointed floor on the Mexican side, which had been broken during the construction, have been repaired, and the flow of wastewater has been mitigated on the Tijuana river.
“If you look at the river caliber for the last week or ten days, the river flow is down. It is between six and eight and 10 million GPD now, instead of 24 or 30,” said Mcintosh. At that time, on June 15, there was a cross -border flow to the Sol Canyon collector due to a drinking water leak in Mexico, which lasted just over an hour until it was repaired.
Due to a partially obstructed line of transmission between the collector of the Sun Canyon and the box of the box of the box that leads to the plant of the southern bay, the flow that drained from the collector’s box was dramatically reduced and the additional flow of the leakage of the drinking water line gave rise to a spill of 5,000 gallons. Mcintosh said that the Commission’s side of the United States, a federal agency created by treaties under the United States State Department, wants to make sure that the systems will remain properly in the future.
McIntosh said that the Mexican military has completed the expansion of the plant treatment plant with a flag -on -side of the border, and while its modern treatment plant remains on the pipe systems on the Mexican side of the border and the future maintenance. The population of Tijuana has grown considerably in the last twenty years.
“I always worry about operations and maintenance on the Mexican side,” Mcintosh said about recent work. “We want to ensure that we have no problems with capacity for ten years such as what happened before.”
Update: This story was updated on June 20 with the correct cost of $ 600 million. The time line for expansion at 50 mgd was also updated.
