Santa Cruz faces state of emergency Damaged sewage pipe ‘stable,’ officials say

NOGALES — Arizona has declared a state of emergency in Santa Cruz County with a 30-inch pipe that funnels between 12 million and 14 million gallons of sewage a day from Sonora in danger of breaking.

The situation, which officials said “was stable” Tuesday night, was created Friday after floodwaters in the Nogales Wash lifted 116 feet of concrete lining. The sewage flows from Mexico to a treatment plant in Rio Rico.

If the pipe were to break, the sewage likely would spill into the Santa Cruz River and flow north to Green Valley and possibly as far as Pinal County.

The declaration by Acting Governor Jan Brewer, sitting in while Gov. Janet Napolitano is out of the country, clears the way for emergency funding and steps, including activating Arizona National Guard personnel, if necessary.

The city of Nogales and Santa Cruz County each issued emergency proclamations after the previous day’s storms wreaked havoc on both sides of the border.

As a result, officials of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were in Nogales on Monday to begin mapping a remediation plan.

About 40 law enforcement agents from Santa Cruz, Pima and Cochise counties and the city of Sierra Vista were on standby.

Mayor Ignacio J. Barraza said the lawmen were called for a worst-case scenario in which, for example, the wall of the wash were to cave in and cause massive flooding.

“We (would) rather be accused of being overly cautious than not cautious enough if some disaster were to occur,” he said.

Friday, floodwaters from the hills on the Sonora side crashed against and may have compromised the integrity of the border fence downtown and some damage was reported to the concrete on Morley Avenue near the pedestrian crossing, officials said.

In Mexico, several cars were dragged and overturned during the flooding. There were no reported injuries on either side, except a Nogales, Sonora, firefighter who was struck by a vehicle after the fire truck he was in crashed. The truck hit a pole while responding to a flood-related incident.

The firefighter was transported to a Tucson hospital and was reportedly in good condition.

Most of the damage in the Nogales Wash occurred at its confluence with the Ephriam Canyon wash (Western Avenue) near Arizona Bowl bowling alley. Lateral concrete panels buckled and cracked on the west side of the channel.

After storm waters receded on Friday evening, a worker with the city street department noticed the concrete had broken loose and folded over itself. He also reported that the walls had cracked.

Barraza and Deputy City Manager John E. Kissinger responded and began calling county officials and representatives of the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, which owns the sewage pipe.

Another less-intensive storm on Sunday raised the water levels in the wash again and caused another floor panel directly above the sewage pipe to lift and shift.

The IBWC provided a structural engineer to help city officials decide on a course of action, which in part entailed shoring up the lateral panels with sandbags and placing a concrete berm to divert some of the water and prevent further erosion, Barraza said.

The walls were to be perforated, he said, with 18-inch holes, which will then be injected with a slurry or bonding mixture that dries within 20 minutes.

All train traffic has been suspended for 14 days after Kissinger flagged down an engineer to stop about an eighth of a mile from the scene.

Manuel C. Coppola is the editor and publisher at the Nogales International. Contact him at manuel.coppola@nogalesinternational.com. Comment on this story online at www.gvnews.com.