Without A Paddle

It was 1987, J. and myself were next to the clear blue flowing waters of the Santa Cruz River, near Marana, northwest of Tucson, and we came upon a 13-year-old boy hunting jackrabbits with his 22-caliber rifle. We were startled - we hadn't even realized the boy was there: the winding, deeply-incised 20-foot deep channel of the riverbed restricted visibility. Nervous, we made small talk:

Us: Are you from around here?
Boy: I'm from Marana.
Us: Isn't it amazing that there's water here? There's no water further upstream.
Boy: I guess. It always flows here.
Us: Do you know what this stream is called?
Boy: I call it "Shit Creek."

How apropos! Groundwater pumping in the Tucson area had long stopped the free flow of the Santa Cruz River. The only reason there was flowing water here (unbeknownst to the boy) was because it was downstream of the Roger Road Sewage Treatment Plant. The water was treated sewer water, flowing northwestward and sinking into the riverbed, disappearing altogether near Marana.

Still, at least the treated sewer water didn't stink.

But not all is well in Tucson these days. The whole city is smelling like sewage. And the reason is striking - population growth, together with sewage over-centralization, means more sewage is traveling farther across the city, and therefore ripening more before it ever reaches the treatment plant, which means - problems everywhere!:

No longer limited to a 2-mile circle around the Roger Road plant, the range of complaints now reaches down to Barrio Viejo south of Downtown, north to near La Encantada shopping center in the Catalina Foothills, and as far east as East Grant Road and North Alvernon Way.

...The county has spent $4.5 million over 20 separate projects — and another $400,000 on consultants — to control odors in the sewer system.

...But Fairbanks, who lives a half a mile away from the Roger Road plant, said this fall was the worst it had ever been since she moved to her home in 1999.

"I came in every day and I told the engineers, 'It smelled worse this year than any year. It was really, really bad last night.' "

Growth has contributed to the odor problems, but not in the ways you might think.
It's not a matter of sewage overloads, but of distance and growth patterns that undermined previous attempts to get the problem under control.

The department expanded the Ina Road treatment plant, expecting the Northwest area to grow. But the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan limited growth in the Northwest and shifted it to the Southeast and Southwest.

The sewage from the new homes was flowing into the Roger Road plant, and the longer sewage travels the smellier it gets. It can take as long as 24 hours for the contents of a toilet flushed in Vail to reach the plant.

"We couldn't keep up with the faraway flows that were being added," Fairbanks said.
Those changes created ripple effects throughout the system.

"What starts over here in one neighborhood on the far East Side is going to impact odors down here which is going to impact odors here, which is going to make things worse at the plant," Fairbanks said. "It is like the knee bone is connected to the leg bone kind of thing."