Council approves wastewater consent order

The Town Council Monday approved an agreement with the state that allowed it to escape any fines over its unauthorized expansion of the wastewater plant in 2006.

The agreement could allow the town to operate a temporary expansion by next week.

The council heard a discussion of a wastewater consent order in executive session, then voted 5-0 in open session to approve the order. Absent were Vice Mayor Phil Conklin and council member Scott Downs.

The order next must be signed by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to become effective.

The order gives state approval for the town’s strategy for coping with its wastewater capacity problems, and part of the agreement means the town can begin operating its 200,000 gallons-per-day expansion as soon as ADEQ signs the order, Town Manager Jim Stahle said.

The order could be signed this week, which would allow operators to feed microbes into the expansion, and after a week, operators could begin diverting raw sewage into the expansion.

The town’s wastewater plan includes hauling raw sewage to the Pima County Green Valley plant until the temporary expansion is operating; operating the 200,000 gpd temporary expansion until 2009, when a permanent expansion to 1.5 million gpd is expected to be completed, and hauling sludge from the temporary expansion to a Pima County facility on Ina Road.

Those measures would serve homes and one school in Rancho Sahuarita.

Another feature of the plan is to pay for and operate a septic system that is serving commercial development in Rancho Sahuarita and would do so until 2009, when the permanent expansion is operating.

The temporary expansion would increase the town’s wastewater capacity by more than 40 percent, as the permanent plant is permitted for 490,000 gallons.

The town ran afoul of ADEQ in October 2006, when it expanded the plant from 300,000 gpd to 490,000 gpd before receiving an Aquifer Protection Permit from ADEQ.

That was done because actual flows were exceeding the permitted capacity, Stahle said.

ADEQ could have levied fines as high as $25,000 a day for each day the plant was running above its permitted capacity in 2006, Stahle said.

Meanwhile, the town faces a lawsuit from Rancho Sahuarita over wastewater capacity issues. Rancho Sahuarita filed the suit in Pima County Superior Court on Nov. 13, arguing that if the developer loses a lawsuit filed by Richmond American, the town is liable and should cover the damages because it was unable to provide capacity in 2006.

pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com | 547-973