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•Full Article: Desert Water Emergency: City of Yuma, AZ
 

By Kathleen T. Carroll,
Water/Wastewater Treatment Manager,
City Of Yuma,
Dave Sobeck, P.E.,
Associate,
Carollo Engineers,
And
Archie MacDonald,
Vice President Of Sales,
Pureflow Filtration Division

In the Southern Arizona desert communities, water is a precious resource. This is especially true for the city of Yuma, AZ where the average yearly rainfall is only two inches. What makes water even more precious in Yuma is that the city is the third fastest growing community in the United States. Between the years of 1995 and 2000 the city of Yuma’s population increased by more than 50%. As the population increased due to the expanding industrial and military presence, residential housing areas have developed, contributing to the ever increasing need for potable water. Currently the population of Yuma proper is over 88,000 and growing at an even greater pace than previously seen.

Yuma provides water to more than 103,000 people. Most of the drinking water comes from the Colorado River and must be treated before being made available to the community. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for setting national limits for hundreds of substances in drinking water and also specifies various treatments that water systems must use to remove these substances. Each treatment system continually monitors for these substances and reports to its local, state, or federal Department of Health Services if they are detected in the drinking water. The U.S. EPA uses the data to ensure that consumers are receiving clean water. In Yuma, the raw water is delivered to the Main Street Treatment Facility via the Arizona canal system. This system has a design capacity of 40 MGD (million gallons per day) and regularly produces more than 30 MGD during the summer months.

Faced with the ever increasing need for more potable water, the city of Yuma began the process of building a second surface water treatment plant to serve the east side of the city. Unfortunately, the time required for design, construction, and commissioning of the proposed Agua Viva Water Treatment Facility (WTF) could not meet the anticipated demand for clean water. Since building a new plant would not meet the city’s immediate needs, the solution was to treat the two existing wells on the east side of the city that were contaminated with iron and manganese. The Agua Viva Water Treatment Facility Interim Phase Improvements were developed to provide a series of cost-effective enhancements to the existing Agua Viva WTF that could be quickly implemented to meet the rapidly increasing water demands. Increasing water production capabilities to keep pace with growth in the East Mesa area of the city had significant economic and social impacts. The city also contemplated placing a moratorium on building in the East Mesa area until the new 20 MGD Agua Viva WTF could be brought on-line to meet the water demands associated with the existing, upcoming residential and industrial development.

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•Full Article: Desert Water Emergency: City of Yuma, AZ