By Jon Johnson/Gila Herald
PIMA — The Town of Pima is locked in a race against the clock to complete a key phase of its municipal sewer expansion before state contractors begin a major highway overhaul through town.
At the Pima Town Council meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 8, Town Manager Vernon Batty reported that while the initial Pima sewer expansion project connecting the new Pima High School is officially complete, the town is now moving rapidly to eliminate the lift station behind the Speedway gas station.
The next step calls for running a new sewer line across U.S. Highway 70, allowing that section of the system to flow by gravity directly into the newly constructed main line near the high school.
Originally, the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) indicated that if Pima could install the pipe before state roadwork reaches that section, the town would be allowed to open-trench directly across the asphalt rather than execute an expensive underground bore.
However, recent announcements that work on the $20.7 million Highway 70 repaving project between Thatcher and Pima will begin late this month caught town officials off guard. The project will span a 5.4-mile stretch of east- and westbound Highway 70, running from Reay Lane in Thatcher (milepost 335) to Cottonwood Wash in Pima (milepost 330). It follows a similar pavement overhaul completed earlier this year on Highway 70 between 8th Street in Safford and Reay Lane.
“I talked to ADOT and let them know of my intentions, and they said that if we come across the highway before they come through to improve the highway, then they will let us cut across instead of having to bore underneath, which will save us a lot of money,” Batty told the council. “I was collaborating with them on that, and then all of a sudden… it’s reported that the project is starting this month. So that kind of caught me off guard.”
Batty said he has reached out to primary contractor W.W. Clyde to coordinate schedules and pinpoint the exact deadline before paving equipment reaches the crossing location.
Funding and design for the town’s sewer crossover are already secured, but the project is currently waiting on final state approval.
“We’ve got the money in hand, we’ve got the design done, but ADOT is reviewing the design—they’ve had it for about five weeks now,” Batty explained. “Hopefully ADOT gets our design approved and permitted, and then we can figure out when our deadline is and get that done.”
To streamline execution once permits are issued, legal counsel and project engineers confirmed the town can treat the highway crossover as a change-order extension of the high school sewer contract. That allows Pima to retain Judco LLC, the contractor that completed the school’s sewer line.
“The good news is, talking with our lawyers and the engineers, we can treat this project as an extension of the school sewer project,” Batty said. “We can make it a change order and use our same contractors, who we were very happy with.”
In addition to municipal wastewater, town officials and local utilities—including Graham County Electric Cooperative (GCEC) and telecom providers—are exploring laying joint utility conduits during the trenching process to accommodate future infrastructure needs without disturbing the newly paved highway down the road.
Batty noted he will return to the town council with final contractor pricing once ADOT approves the permits and the timeline is locked in.
