New State of the Art Wastewater Treatment facility in Brawley - | News for Yuma, Imperial Valley, El Centro, AZ & CA

New State of the Art Wastewater Treatment facility in Brawley

BRAWLEY, CA - After 10 years of planning the City of Brawley is celebrating the opening of it's new wastewater treatment facility.

Ruben Mireles, the Operations Division Manager for the City of Brawley says "The quality going into the New River now is much cleaner. Its pristine water and the nutrients going in to it is reduced tremendously where there is no types of algae growth that can happen into the new river from our discharge."

Yazmin Arellano, the Public Works Director for the City of Brawley says the new state of the art facility puts them in compliance the water quality control board, in turn, saving the city thousands if not millions of dollars. She tells News 13 "We were facing fines up to $3,000 a day."

Arellano says the city was in violation because the old plants ammonia and B-O-D levels were out of compliance.

 Now the $23 million plant will be more cost effective for the city and its residents.

 Brawley City Mayor, George Nava says "It saves tax payers money because we had an out dated antiquated system that was basically being fixed constantly and there were different issues and we would try to make repairs spending hundreds if not millions of dollars making those repairs and not always were those repairs successful."

The city also says it expands their business opportunities.

 "Developers can come in and build facilities and we can treat their waste water now. We couldn't before because we were at capacity."

The city was also given a $10 million loan forgiveness through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.