Water Management at G.M. De Mexico Ramos Arizpe Complex

GM de Mexico Ramos Arizpe Automotive Complex (RAAC) manufactures engines and passenger cars. Located in the northern part of Mexico, the RAAC water supply comes entirely from a subsurface aquifer whose drawdown rates presently exceed its recharge rate. The original wastewater treatment facilities, installed at the beginning of the RAAC operations, became inadequate as a result of more stringent wastewater discharge limits issued by SEDUE (Mexican EPA counterpart) in 1987 (see Table I).

A Water Management Study was performed in 1986-7, to determine viable solutions to the problems of insufficient water supply and wastewater treatment. A three-phase Water Management Program was adopted. This included: the physical-chemical treatment of industrial wastewaters, and the biological treatment of sanitary wastewater (Phase I), the biological treatment of industrial wastewater (Phase II), and the total recovery of treated wastewaters, including brine from the reverse osmosis systems which are currently used for well-water desalting (Phase III).

This paper presents a summary of the RAAC Water Management Project.