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Arizona-Sonora Regional Workgroup
Arizona-Sonora Regional Projects
Arizona-Sonora Water
This project to improve Quitovac’s potable water system has been completed. Coordinated through the Tohono O’odham Nation, a new well, water storage tank and distribution system for the community have been installed. The system has increased water storage facilities of the school by adding a 3,000 gallon storage tank and has provided safe drinking water. This project serves Quitovac, a small O’odham indigenous community of 18 homes in Sonora, Mexico, and a local boarding school of 100 children.
Construction has started on the $65 million upgrade of the Nogales International Wastewater Treatment Plant. This project will reduce bacterial concentrations as well as the need for chlorine in the Nogales Wash, and thus will help achieve Border 2012 Goal 1, Objectives 1 and 2. The Nogales Wash is listed as “impaired” by the state of Arizona. Rehabilitating 18.7 miles of primary and secondary sanitary sewer lines willsignificantly reduce fugitive flows (and related human health impacts) into the Nogales Wash and across the border. It will also reduce inflows and infiltration which will decrease peak flows to the Nogales International Wastewater Treatment Plant. The project will serve a population of 188,133. EPA estimates that approximately 45,886 additional homes will have access to adequate wastewater service. This project is funded by the Border Environment Infrastructure Fund (BEIF).
The construction of a wastewater treatment plant and the rehabilitation of a wastewater collection system in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora has been completed. This project now connects an additional 20,000 homes and benefits approximately 80,000 residents in San Luis Rio Colorado.
The Nogales Municipal Utility will receive a new mass spectrometer and technical support from KINO Labs in support of pre-treatment efforts and laboratory analysis of wastewater, to ensure that wastewater from Nogales, Sonora does not cause the treatment plant in Nogales, Arizona to violate water quality standards.
Arizona-Sonora Air
This project aims to reduce children’s exposure of diesel particulate matter emissions while children wait for and ride school buses in Rio Rico, Arizona. Thirty-two school buses with older diesel engine technology have been retrofitted with Air Pollution Control Technologies (either particulate filters or diesel oxidation catalysts). This project makes ultra low sulfur diesel fuel more readily available, and subsidizes the fuel for properly retrofitted engines.
The goal of this project is to substantially reduce diesel particulate emissions in Nogales. Using opacimeters and other remote sensing devices, this project measured the emissions of 13,000 heavy duty diesel vehicles (by passing an ultraviolet and infra red beam through each truck’s emissions plume) and corroborated the results with existing EPA-approved measurement methods. This technology estimated commercial truck emissions accurately, cost effectively and unobtrusively, and avoided delays at the border that could have further aggravated air quality. The results were reviewed at EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality and were used to characterize heavy truck emissions by vehicle age and country of registration. Using this information to target trucks identified as “gross emitters”, ADEQ, with the support of EPA, plans to retrofit fifty heavy-duty short haul diesel trucks in Ambos Nogales with either diesel oxidation catalysts or particulate filters.
Arizona State University will perform targeted PM10 monitoring using portable analyzers and then conduct a health survey regarding respiratory illness. Based on the results of this monitoring survey and previous work done in the Colonia, ASU and the municipality will then conduct outreach to the brickmakers to encourage them to relocate outside of the urban area.
Final Report: English (14pp, 500K) | en Español (15pp, 500K)
In 2005, Arizona and Sonora entered into a declaration of cooperation to establish the Arizona-Sonora Regional Climate Change Initiative. Since then, Arizona has completed a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory and forecast and developed an Arizona Climate Change Action Plan (www.azclimatechange.gov 
). Arizona has been facilitating an agreement between the state of Sonora’s Commission of Ecology and Sustainable Development (CEDES), Mexico’s National Institute of Ecology (INE), the University of Sonora (UNISON) and the U.S. based Center for Climate Strategies (CCS) to develop a similar GHG inventory and forecast for the state of Sonora.
The emissions assessment will characterize and quantify the sources, driving variables and uncertainties behind GHG emissions in Sonora. It will also support future development of more refined GHG estimates and baselines for specific sectors, sub-sectors and GHGs that support specific planning and program development. This project is in conjunction with Border 2012 Goal 2, to reduce air pollution using clean energy/clean environment initiatives and voluntary efforts for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gases.
The Rio Rico Fire Department will develop the capacity for the production and use of biodiesel in school and public sector safety vehicles through this on-going project. This project will reduce diesel emissions, reduce oil and grease from entering the Nogales Wastewater Treatment Plant which can result in violations of water quality standards in the Santa Cruz River, and create a structure for expanding the use of biodiesel within Ambos Nogales.
Arizona-Sonora Land
The removal of 80,000 scrap tires in San Luis through public-private partnerships was completed in late 2007. The tires were sent to cement kilns and used as tire-derived fuel. The cleanup has reduced land contamination and public health risks in Mexico and Arizona. Outreach efforts on actions needed to develop an integrated scrap tire management program in San Luis are on-going.
The Tohono O’odham Nation (Nation) has completed a project to clean up waste left by undocumented migrants and identify recycling markets for the waste. Up to 1,500 undocumented migrants cross the Tohono O’odham Nation each day, discarding 8 pounds of waste per person. This project, funded by EPA’s Border 2012 Program and the Bureau of Land Management and the Nation, cleaned up 45 tons of waste from 84 sites, and identified recycling markets for 150 bicycles, plastics, backpacks, clothing and blankets. Also, the Nation identified 190 vehicles abandoned by drug and people smugglers. As of the end of 2007 the Tohono O’odham Nation has removed 52 abandoned vehicles.
Based on the successful used oil recycling pilot study recently completed in Nogales, Sonora, in which 8,000 gallons of used oil was collected from over 50 small business generators, the implementation of an expanded used oil recycle program in Nogales, Sonora is underway. This expanded program will dramatically increase the quantities of used oil recycled by increasing the number of collections from small business generators in Nogales and by including the collection of household used oil wastes. This should significantly reduce the current dumping practices and thereby reduce the potential of contaminating the ground water and the washes which flow into Nogales Arizona. This project should provide a model which can be duplicated in the other border cities and thereby significantly reduce the environmental impact caused by the illegal dumping practices on the Mexican side of the border.
Arizona-Sonora Environmental Health
Through the Arizona-Mexico Commission, agricultural, educational, environmental and health professionals and the University of Arizona are collaborating to promote and implement Integrated Pest Management (IPM) at border region schools. IPM guidance materials have been translated into Spanish, and Sonoran agencies have organized “train-the-trainer” workshops to establish a corp. of trainers that will teach IPM in Sonoran border schools. Expansion of the program is being considered to all schools throughout Sonora. An interrelated effort is also being proposed to promote IPM in Arizona’s border schools and to conduct Arizona-Sonora trainer exchanges. These efforts aim to reduce asthma triggers in the border region such as the use of harmful pesticides in school environments.
In partnership with Campesinos Sin Fronteras, the Farmworker Justice Fund has developed a replicable, crop specific pesticide hazard communication program for farm workers and employers. This project focuses on lettuce and citrus workers in Yuma County, Arizona. Farmworker Justice provides technical assistance on crop-specific pesticides, risk assessment information, and potential hazards. Campesinos Sin Fronteras is recruiting trainers and conducting training sessions for Farm Labor contractors and other agricultural employers.
To date, a bilingual hazard communication booklet has been produced for lettuce workers in the Yuma, Arizona area. The booklet describes short- and long-term health effects associated with pesticides typically used on lettuce. Through this booklet and direct interaction with workers, hundreds of lettuce workers have been educated on pesticide safety. In addition, a Hazard Communication Workshop was presented to growers and supervisors in Yuma County. This workshop included Worker Protection Standard requirements and practical ways to reduce employee pesticide exposure.
The Pesticides Program provides direct support to achieve Border 2012 Goal 4, to improve environmental health, by supporting State, Border-wide, and National efforts to address pesticide issues at the border. In 2006, the Pesticides Program conducted a successful project in Arizona/Sonora to collect obsolete or unwanted pesticide stocks. Approximately 102,000 lbs. and 480 gallons of waste pesticides from Yuma, AZ and San Luis, Sonora were collected and properly disposed of in the Unites States. Technical assistance is being provided to Mexican state and local agencies to develop sustainable programs to effectively manage unwanted pesticides in the future.
Arizona-Sonora Emergency Response
Printed in March 2005, 1,600 copies of this bilingual field guide have been distributed to key participants responsible for responding during an emergency. Groups that use the field guide include: participants of the national coordinators meeting in Tucson, Arizona, task force member agencies and other border emergency response organizations. The field guide is a compilation of terminology and vocabulary used by emergency responders and medical personnel. It is a useful communication tool for emergency responders from the Arizona-Sonora border area. As of the end of 2007, 287 Mexican First Responders have been trained in the Emergency Response Guidebook through Sonora Civil Protection.
Arizona-Sonora Environmental Stewardship
In 2005, Border 2012 launched a series of Environment Management System (EMS) workshops in Nogales, Sonora, in partnership with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. EMSs increase environmental compliance and promote innovations to save energy, realize cost savings, and reduce pollution. The Sonora Urban Infrastructure and Ecology Department (SIUE) and Mexico’s Federal Attorney General for the Environment (PROFEPA) in Sonora supported these workshops. Nearly 15 public and private organizations were trained in developing and implementing an EMS through this effort.
This program aims to bring Arizona and Mexican industries closer together to share technologies that reduce waste and pollution, while increasing profits, worker safety, and environmental health. The governors of Arizona and Sonora present awards to small and medium-sized businesses with exemplary accomplishments in environmental protection (while participating in the AMIGO program) at the fall plenary sessions of the Arizona-Mexico and the Sonora-Arizona Commissions. Award applications for the categories of process improvements and pollution prevention promotion are reviewed by staffs from ADEQ, EPA, CEDES (formerly SIUE) and PROFEPA.