San Juan, Texas, March 31, 2004 -- The City of San Juan, Texas, broke ground on sewer hookups that will connect 1,356 homes to a new sewer system.
Local city and county officials were joined by representatives from the offices of U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and U.S. Representative Ruben Hinojosa, the North American Development Bank (NADB), and the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), at a celebration commemorating the first-time service to nearly 6,100 colonia residents.
The installation of the sewer service connections is the final part of a $17.3 million wastewater improvements project to expand the City's sewer collection system, which included construction of 24 miles of sewer lines and 6 lift stations.
The City's wastewater treatment plant was also expanded to provide a treatment capacity of 4 million gallons per day. Construction of the hookups is expected to be completed in late 2004.
"We are very pleased to see that the infrastructure is in place to allow the colonia residents to connect to the new system and eliminate inadequate septic tanks and cesspools," stated Mayor Roberto Loredo. "We believe that home should have the basic necessities that many of us take for granted today, and this project achieves that goal."
The NADB contributed a $1.6 million grant through its EPA-funded Border Environment Infrastructure Fund (BEIF) to finance the sewer connections from the homes to the sewer system.
The funding was secured by the state government as part of its "Texas Plan" to provide sewer and water connections for a number of communities along the state's entire border with Mexico. The City of San Juan, the TWDB Economically Distressed Areas Program and the U.S. Department of Commerce provided funds for the design and construction of the wastewater collection and treatment system expansion.
Through its BEIF program, the NADB has approved more than US$475 million in EPA-funded grants to support the construction of environmental infrastructure in various communities, which will benefit residents on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Since its inception in 1995, the NADB has approved US$642 million in loans and grants for 76 infrastructure projects in the region.
For more information on the NADB, visit www.nadb.org.
The North American Development Bank, created under the auspices of NAFTA, is a financial institution established and capitalized in equal parts by the United States and Mexico for the purpose of financing environmental infrastructure projects along their common border. As a pioneer institution in its field, the Bank is working to develop integrated, sustainable and fiscally responsible projects with broad community support in a framework of close cooperation and coordination between Mexico and the United States.
