Call Center Company in Yuma, AZ

YUMA, AZ (AZFamily) — Three people are hurt, including two firefighters, after a massive fire engulfed a Yuma business on Friday morning.

According to Rural Metro Fire-Yuma County, the fire started around 9 a.m. near 13th Street and Engler Avenue. Due to the size of the blaze, Rural Metro requested help from the Yuma Fire Department and crews from both departments worked to contain it.

Rural Metro Battalion Chief Jeff Woodruff said that one firefighter was hospitalized with a muscular-type injury from moving a hose. The second firefighter twisted their ankle and refused hospitalization.

Chief Woodruff added that the man who was inside the business had severe burns.

Yuma Fire says there were multiple reports of brief power outages in the area. Arizona’s Family confirmed that the Yuma DMV lost power for only about 10 minutes and experienced minimal disruption.

The chief said that the public should not be concerned about fumes in the air at this time.

“Most of it’ll thin out before it gets anywhere near the public. This is industrial area, so there shouldn’t be any real hazard to anybody,” Woodruff explained. “For the firefighter’s safety, they do go in where its self-contained breathing apparatus.”

Rural Metro initially reported that the fire was at the AA Sydcol, a recycling plant, but later stated that it was burning at a business east of the plant.

The public is urged to avoid the area to let crews work. Investigators are still working to determine what sparked the fire.

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YUMA, AZ (AZFamily)—There’s a push to reduce reliance on China for cobalt, a metal key to making rechargeable batteries, computer chips, and medical devices.

The nation’s first cobalt processing facility could be coming to Arizona.

Evelution Energy’s solar-powered cobalt processing facility was approved by Yuma County leaders two years ago. The company said they’re on track to begin construction at the end of the year. The facility is set to be built in Tacna, about 40 miles east of Yuma.

Co-founder Gil Michel-Garcia said the plant will meet 40% of the U.S. demand for cobalt.

“What we’re trying to do in this facility is address the lack of cobalt processing and the lack of domestic availability in the United States and produce it in a green manner in a large facility,” said Garcia.

Garcia said they’re trying to disrupt China’s dominance in the cobalt market. It’s estimated that China’s refineries produce 60-90% of the global supply.

With President Trump moving to boost domestic metals production, Evelution Energy believes it’s in the right place at the right time. “We are a project that directly benefits from the tariffs because we are preventing competing Chinese materials,” said Garcia.

A Yuma economic impact report estimates that the proposed plant will create 1,200 construction jobs and up to 60 permanent positions.

The company plans to partner with Arizona Western College to develop a training program for hiring local students and veterans.

“We’re particularly focused on hiring veterans because we’re gonna want people with security clearances,” said Garcia.

Evelution Energy says it is committed to an environmentally friendly solar-powered facility. It plans to use water from groundwater wells and recycle up to 70% of it.

“We’re not dumping anything in the water table that may affect them and we’re not leaving out any materials that could create dust that could contaminate their crops,” said Garcia.

Garcia said the surplus energy they produce from their solar will be sold at a low cost to nearby farmers.

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YUMA, AZ (AZFamily) — The Yuma Sector Border Patrol is planning a new immigration checkpoint along Interstate 8.

It will replace Yuma Sector Border Patrol’s former checkpoint near Telegraph Pass, which was shut down in October 2023 after a truck crashed into the site, injuring eight people, including two agents.

Yuma Border Patrol Chief Justin De La Torres said that the checkpoint was established in the 1980s. While it served its purpose, he said it is now outdated. He said it will be relocated further east to better align with traffic patterns in the area.

De La Torre said the move will strengthen border security by allowing agents to keep a closer watch on travelers heading north and east toward Phoenix.

While immigration remains the checkpoint’s primary focus, agents are also working to stop the trafficking of drugs and weapons through the region. These checkpoints across the southwest have resulted in thousands of arrests over the years for illegal drug and weapon trafficking.

“Agents also have the authority to make arrests without warrants for crimes committed in our presence, so there’s times where we encounter drug smuggling, weapon smuggling, and other laws that we enforce and we have made several arrests in those checkpoints because of that authority,” said De La Torre.

As illegal border crossings have declined, there’s been a slight uptick in drug seizures along the southern border since January. In March alone, the Tucson and Yuma sectors reported over 100 drug busts.

In addition to building a new checkpoint, Yuma border patrol has begun work to close gaps in the border wall. Crews are installing new steel panels and plan to deploy advanced technology to help detect activity in the remote desert areas.

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A cobalt processing facility that would boost the U.S. supply of the critical mineral is on track to begin construction in late 2025.

Once built, the facility in Yuma County would be the only cobalt processing facility in the U.S.

Cobalt is a mineral in high demand for its use in electric vehicle batteries, aerospace products and defense technologies.

EVelution Energy is the company developing the project, which will be located in Wellton in Yuma County, near the California state line. The company says it plans to design and operate a carbon-neutral solar power facility that would treat and recycle 70% of its water and transport its tailings, waste byproducts of the processed ore, to the local landfill to minimize the risk of contamination on the property and surrounding land.

“Our plant is basically a best-in-class green facility … That’s why we got unanimous approval from the Yuma County Board of Supervisors because we addressed all the concerns of the stakeholders,” said Gil Michel-Garcia, the co-founder, executive vice president and general counsel of EVelution Energy.

Since the project was unanimously approved by the Yuma County Board of Supervisors in 2023, the company has secured $200 million in long-term financing through the Export-Import Bank of the United States, a federal agency that provides loans, guarantees and insurance to domestic companies.

EVelution Energy is now looking to raise the rest of the funds through federal programs. This includes a $64.8 million debt financing through the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, which allows investors to apply for a green card by investing in U.S. companies located in rural or high-unemployment areas. The company is also looking at raising $57.5 million under the Qualified Opportunity Zone program, which provides tax incentives to U.S. investors who invest in economically depressed areas.

Why cobalt?

Cobalt is a critical mineral, considered essential to the economy and national security, which could be vulnerable to supply-chain disruptions.

“It’s absolutely crucial for high heat-resistant parts that are contained in almost every military application, aerospace and defense application you can think of,” Michel-Garcia said about the use of cobalt. “From the inside of engines to the covering of the supersonic missiles, to stealth bombers, to radar targeting systems, to permanent magnets, all of them contain cobalt metal in some form or another.”

EVelution Energy founders said the company was being considered to help supply the U.S. reserve of critical minerals. At full capacity, the company said the Yuma facility would be capable of supplying 30% of U.S. demand.

About 75% of the world’s cobalt is produced by the Democratic Republic of Congo, then sent abroad and processed into cobalt sulfate for electric vehicle batteries. More than 70% of the cobalt sulfate is refined in China, and most of the remainder is processed in Finland and Indonesia.

With China’s dominance in the market, interest in processing cobalt in the U.S. is growing. The recent tariffs imposed on China by the White House also have benefited EVelution Energy.

“They've exempted critical minerals imports,” Michel-Garcia said about the Trump administration’s tariffs. “All of our imports would come in tariff-free, and they would prevent our competitors, the Chinese, from being able to export products into the United States.”

EVelution touts commitment to sustainably, job creation

The company highlighted its responsibility to source cobalt ethically. Of the total cobalt mined in the DRC, about 15% to 30% is produced by unregulated artisanal small-scale mining, the source of reported human rights violations, where children are put to work and miners work in unsafe conditions, according to a paper published by New York University and Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

To help companies source minerals responsibly, countries and businesses have created initiatives and guidelines to follow. One organization, the Responsible Business Alliance, created the Responsible Minerals and offers an assessment of which smelters and refiners have systems in place to source minerals responsibly, among other tools. The Organization for Economic Co-operation, an international organization, has also published guidance for sourcing minerals responsibly from conflict-affected and high-risk areas.

EVelution Energy says it is committed to identifying and mitigating human rights abuses, child labor and other issues in the cobalt supply chain and aims to do business with companies that follow these published guidelines and initiatives.

A study conducted by a third-party consultant estimated that the cobalt processing facility would create 3,300 direct, indirect and induced jobs in Yuma and generate more than $750 million of economic activity.

“This is a facility that is not only strategically important for the country from a national security perspective, it's a facility that's going to generate a ton of jobs and economic activity,” Michel-Garcia said.

Through a partnership with Arizona Western College, EVelution Energy will help develop a critical-mineral metallurgical processing program at the college’s Wellton campus, close to the facility. These newly trained professionals could be part of the 100 employees working at the facility. The training program likely would begin in 2027, Michel-Garcia said.

Jobs at the plant would include security and administrative personnel, electricians, welders, machinists and processors, Michel-Garcia said.

“Our goal is to make every effort that we can to hire local residents and to allow this opportunity to retiring veterans from the nearby bases,” he said.

Yuma wants to be home to Arizona’s first spaceport.

The city of nearly 100,000 people was recently announced as one of more than 70 finalists for a grant from the National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines program. That could provide up to $160 million over a 10-year period to build the spaceport. The grant is funded by the Southwest Regional Aerospace Innovation Alliance.

The city's intentions are to establish the spaceport and “enhance national security and reduce costs compared to coastal alternatives," according to a news release. The city said the aerospace alliance wants to “advance environmentally friendly propulsion systems for space exploration,” and help the workforce develop and utilize the skills to meet demands in industries such as aerospace, defense and satellites. The effort seeks to create 2,500–3,000 new jobs annually and bring more money into the economy.

“What we’re talking about is a spaceport, which would launch small rockets which would carry communications satellites,” Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls said recently on ABC15.com. “We’re not launching people or launching Teslas. We’re launching small rockets."

In early March, Nicholls was selected by Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs to serve on the Arizona Space Commission.

“I see extremely high potential for increased opportunities, quality of life and higher education,” Nicholls said in a city news release. “We need to look to the future to be involved in the industries of the future.”

The Arizona Space Commission had been dormant but was revived in February following 2024 passage of House Bill 2254. Hobbs said the legislation was intended to help the state be a leader in the space economy.

“Creating economic opportunity and advancing innovation are essential to realizing the Arizona Promise,” Hobbs said in a news release. “The newly launched Arizona Space Commission will solidify our state's leadership in space exploration and help grow our workforce in critical industries of the future.”

Yuma is considered a good location for a spaceport based on factors including the desert climate and proximity to the Sea of Cortez or Gulf of California.