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Town Manager reports March pumping and discharge data; committee raises antimony concerns
Summary
The Sonoita Creek Flood & Flow Study Committee reviewed March pumping and discharge figures reported by the Town Manager and raised questions about antimony detections in two wells, operational criteria for turning wells on or off, and the need for ADEQ modeling and continued monitoring.
The Sonoita Creek Flood and Flow Study Committee reviewed March water-production and discharge figures at its April 9 meeting, and members pressed staff about antimony detections and how wells are operated.
Town Manager Tomas Goode presented March data for the Town of Patagonia: the town pumped 112,474 gallons per day, processed 39,716 gallons per day, recorded a static water level of 35 feet, 9 inches, and measured 0.75 inches of rainfall for the month. He also relayed February discharge figures reported by South32 at the Hermosa site: an average discharge of 0.73592 million gallons per day and a maximum discharge of 1.45204 million gallons per day.
A committee member asked whether the two wells that previously showed antimony are in production. Goode reported that those two wells are turned on. Committee members pressed staff to explain how decisions are made to take wells offline or return them to service; Goode summarized that wells are turned off for maintenance, electrical outages, fixture work, or because of constituents of concern, and are turned on to meet operational needs such as optimizing discharge.
The committee also referenced an attachment from Grant Weinkam of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) about the TMDL project in the Patagonia watershed and asked whether ADEQ can create models of metal concentrations in soil and atmospheric deposition and whether those models could indicate potential impacts to Harshaw and Sonoita Creek water quality. The transcript records the question but does not record a response from ADEQ in this meeting.
Chris Gardner was scheduled to present graphs on antimony and selenium in Harshaw Creek; that update was listed on the agenda as forthcoming. Committee members asked for continued monitoring and data-sharing in order to assess whether detected constituents present a risk to the riparian corridor or to downstream users.
The committee set follow-up on monitoring and data requests and noted the next regular meeting for May 14, 2026.
