These artificial wet lands reuse sewage to revive a lost environmental system

In arid The area is south of Mexicali, where the pale desert dominates the landscape, the wetland Las Arenitas appears to be a mirage. But it is real, and it is an oasis of endemic and migratory birds that cross the Colorado River Delta. Here, the southern United States and Mexico, water from Mexicali was used for a second life. Half goes to the nearby Hardy River, in an attempt to revive the ecosystems that are believed to be recovered.

Historically, the waterways were wiped here full of sewage –Especially the new riverWhich runs from the Colorado River in the north, and crosses from Mexico to the United States and ends in the Salon Sea in California. For many years, this water pathway has received inherent wastewater from Mexicali, Present it One of the worst rivers of its size in the United States. In the 1990s, the American and Mexican authorities no longer ignore the bad problem, and they began to cooperate in infrastructure to reduce pollution. Thus, in 2007, southern Mexicali, the Las Arenitas processor began its operations.

Mexicali, which is located directly, generates more than 80 million cubic meters of sewage per year. From this total, 90 percent is collected, with 46 percent of that goes to Las Arinitas.

Mexicali is one of the most important cities in the world. In the summer, the area reaches 50 ° C.

Photo: Pablo Romero

In the sewage factory, solid materials and sediments are removed for the first time from sewage. After that, the lakes run by the surface are used, where the air is injected into the water to stimulate the growth of air bacteria, which decompose the organic matter in the presence of oxygen. Then the water moves to the optional lakes, where the air and anaerobic bacteria complete each other, which is the last organic matter that the first could not. Finally, the water reaches ripening lakes, where the remaining solid materials stabilize.

When it was launched, this new system worked. “Initially, the factory was not perfect,” says Edith Santiago, deputy director of the Colorado River Delta program at Mexicali at the Sonora Institute. To combat this, some organizations have suggested to the Water Management Agency that it should use the surrounding land, which included a lake decades ago, to create a wet, artificial land that would give the water additional cleanliness.

Such a plan, as well as help in the city wastewater problem, will also help restore the local scene to its previous mandate. Before the excessive exploitation of the Colorado River, the Delta Baja California and Sonora crossed until it met the waters of the Gulf of California, which led to more than 400,000 hectares of wetlands. Although the river’s path has become a ghost, about 15 percent of these wetlands have survived, which houses an invaluable biological diversity of plants and animals. It seeks to imitate this force, Las Arenitas is a temporary stop for the destruction of the local scene.