The expansion project at the Mariposa Port of Entry expected to begin as early as next week, will provide up to 130 jobs and require trucking in about 615,000 cubic yards of dirt over a period of about 10 months.

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On Thursday, Gov. Jan Brewer and representatives from Sonora, Arizona and Washington, D.C. donned hard hats and dug shovels into a mound of dirt symbolic of the construction start as well as the massive amount of earth it will take to fill adjacent canyons to accommodate the $213 million reconfiguration of the port.

It will be about the same amount of dirt moved for the Wal-Mart Supercenter in 2002.

The port project is under the direction of the federal General Services Administration. The money will come from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or stimulus program.

Earth moving is expected to begin next week, once contractor Hensel Phelps Construction Company of Phoenix gets a notice to proceed from the federal government, said GSA spokeswoman Gene Gibson. The company will hire sub-contractors to move tons of dirt from land adjacent to the port and use local vendors for supplies, she said.

The project will entail moving 615,000 cubic yards of dirt to the site, which will take about 10 months.

Robert “Kip” Martin, counsel for the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz County Port Authority, said the fill dirt will be provided at no cost to the government by David Parker, who owns property east of the port.

Relocating utility, building storm drains, box culverts and retaining walls will all be part of the initial site preparation, said Steve Grauer, vice president of Hensel Phelps. The “real challenge” will be the logistics in accomplishing all of that in 10 months with minimum impact to port operations.

He said at its peak, the project will comprise between 100 and 130 workers “probably in multiple shifts.” He said GRG Construction of Rio Rico will be among the sub-contractors, Grauer said.

“This project is about relieving congestion and creating jobs,” said Victor Mendez, administrator for the Federal Highway Administration.

“This project will produce real benefits for people,” Brewer told the audience. “After all, people are at the center of all trade.”

Some 1,600 vehicles pass daily through the port, built 35 years ago to process about 400 vehicles a day, the governor said. When the expanded port is finished in 2014, it will be able to process about 3,000 vehicles a day.

Long delays for vehicles to pass through the port are costly to shippers and discourage trade, Brewer said. “The competitiveness of the region depends on increasing trade.”

Her Mexican counterpart, Gov. Guillermo Padres Elias of Sonora, lauded the “relationship of trust” between the two border states. He described the expanded port as “a model of security and efficiency” that will benefit both nations.

“This project has truly been a team effort,” said Nogales Mayor Octavio Garcia-Von Borstel. “Let this be an example to other communities.”

J.B. Manson, chairman of the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz County Port Authority, recalled discouraging trips when he met with members of Congress and repeatedly heard the words, “not in the budget,” he said.

Manson commended Mexico for its plans to build a modern port facility on its side, rather than “move the bottleneck from one place to another,” he said.

The port expansion “will help us strike a proper balance between trade and travel and security,” said David Higgerson, director of field operations for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

A luncheon was held following the groundbreaking hosted by the port authority at Del Campo Supreme Warehouse on West Frontage Road owned by the Ley family of Culiacan.

Among those local companies and organizations recognized for their contributions in the effort to obtain funding for the project were Chamberlain Distributing, J-C Distributing, Del Campo, Apache Produce Imports, Ciruli Brothers, Coogan & Martin P.C., Shannon Brokerage, and the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas.