ACCIONA to build a second water treatment plant in Mexico City

The contract, valued at 764 million Mexican pesos (€47 million), entails the design, construction operation and maintenance of the El Caracol waste water treatment plant for 23 years.

Mexico's National Water Commission (Conagua) has awarded a contract to a consortium of ACCIONA Agua and a group of Mexican companies, in which ACCIONA Agua holds a 50 per cent share, to design, build, operate and maintain the first stage of the El Caracol Waste Water Treatment Plant.

El Caracol is the second plant in a plan to modernise the waste water treatment system for Mexico City. The project will require an investment of 764 million Mexican pesos (around €47 million) and includes its operation and maintenance for 23 years.

ACCIONA Agua is also part of a consortium that is building the first plant of the modernization plan - Atotonilco - which will treat the waste water of 10.5 million inhabitants of Mexico City, or about 60% of the waste water from the Valle de México region. Atotonilco, in the State of Hidalgo, will be the largest treatment plant in the world when completed and has entailed an investment outlay of €500 million.

El Caracol will treat 2,000 litres per second, which will be used to irrigate 6,000 hectares of crops in the municipalities of Texcoco and Atenco, in the Mexico City region, and for the environmental rehabilitation of more than 2,000 hectares of a former lake at Texcoco.

The waste water to be treated will be collected via the so-called intake works above the channel (outlet) parallel to the major sewage pipeline in Mexico City. A pumping station will later be installed to raise the waste water, which will be biologically treated, filtered and disinfected for subsequent reuse in agriculture.

The water treated by the El Caracol plant will replace an equivalent amount of drinking water that is currently used for agricultural irrigation in the municipalities of Atenco and Texcoco. The project will be carried out in what is known as the "Oreja del Caracol", in the north-west corner of what was once the solar evaporator of the Sosa Texcoco company, to the north of the former Texcoco lake in Mexico.

The winning consortium, in which ACCIONA Agua has a 50% stake, includes the Mexican companies Promotora del Desarrollo de América Latina, Carso Infraestructura and Operadora CICSA.

Some 40% of the total cost will be financed by the Mexican Federal Government through the National Infrastructure Fund (FONADIN), while the remainder will be covered by consortium with the financial support of Banobras (National Bank of Public Works and Services of Mexico).

This new contract reinforces ACCIONA Agua's presence in Latin America, where the company recently signed a contract with the Government of Costa Rica to build the country's largest waste water treatment plant in the metropolitan area of San José, the capital. The contract for the Los Tajos plant is valued at US$45 million (more than €35 million).

Other significant contracts in Latin America include the Bello Waste Water Treatment Plant in Medellín (Colombia); ACCIONA's first desalination plant for the mining industry in the Valle de Atacama in Chile; and two treatment plants in Peru.