Copper Basin Water Reclamation Facility

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) requires EPCOR to decommission and replace the Section 11 lagoons by the end of 2025, with the Copper Basin facility providing service by the end of 2023.

Construction on Copper Basin started in mid-2022, soon after EPCOR became the San Tan district’s wastewater service provider and has stayed on schedule ever since.

While Copper Basin is right on schedule, it is possible that electrical equipment could take longer to get here as a result of global supply chain issues. Just in case, we requested a three-month extension to get Copper Basin up and running. ADEQ has approved that 90-day extension to March 31, 2024. We’re still focused on December 31, 2023, as long as electrical equipment that powers Copper Basin arrives on time.

This doesn’t change the timing to close down Section 11 – it will be decommissioned after Copper Basin begins operating and we expect that to happen by the December 2025 timeframe as planned.

We recognize that customers and others may have ongoing questions about the project, and we're committed to transparency and responsiveness. We'll be posting updated project information and timelines on this page and staying in touch with customers in other ways, like EPCOR Essentials news in your monthly bill, throughout the process.

The proposed site for the Copper Basin plant is ideal for safe, clean operation of a water reclamation facility. While Section 11 is located on a high point that requires "lift" stations to convey wastewater to it, a much more efficient solution is to locate a plant at a lower point where it can operate naturally with gravity, as is the case with the proposed Copper Basin site.

The proposed location is also part of the Central Arizona Governments 208 Plan, which was approved in 2007 and the Copper Basin Planned Area Amendment, proposed in 1999.

EPCOR’s approach to building and operating state-of-the-art water reclamation facilities is different to what customers have experienced with Section 11. We were able to improve it enough to continue to operate until Copper Basin is up and running, but we can’t turn it off until that happens. If we do, there is nowhere for the wastewater coming from homes and businesses in this area to go.

We have improved Section 11 as much as possible and significantly lowered instances of odor exceedances, but there continue to be times when the facility’s ecosystem is upset and odors can increase. When that happens, our team immediately gets to work to fix the problem. Here’s one example:

In March 2023, an excessive amount of sewer trash and elevated flows of wastewater coming into Section 11 damaged the lagoon-style aeration system several times. Section 11’s screening system is ineffective, so EPCOR team members must manually rake the screens to clear them and prevent larger debris, like flushable wipes and rags, from coming through. Once the floating debris subsided and all aerators were back up and running, odors decreased to normal levels.

Help us protect your wastewater system: Don’t flush anything but toilet paper down the toilet. Everything else, even flushable wipes, can cause major issues.