El Paso Water Utilities is finishing an expansion of its Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Plant. This upgrade adds 2 million gallons per day of capacity at the plant. The $16.2 million project took about two years and should be completed by the beginning of February.
The plant treats waste water to drinking-quality water. About 44% of the water is pumped into the Hueco Bolson aquifer which is a source of El Paso’s drinking water. About 54 percent of the reclaimed water produced at the plant is piped directly to two large customers: Painted Dunes Desert Golf Course, uses the water for irrigation, and El Paso Electric which uses the water to cool its Newman generating plant. The remaining 2 percent goes into an adjoining wetland.
The plant has increased its capacity from 10 million gallons a day to 12 million, but currently produces about 6 million gallons of water per day.
The project will allow the plant to discharge treated water into the adjacent wetland area that was created when the utility once used evaporative lagoons to get rid of waste water. When the utility needed to renew the plant’s permit several years ago, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality decided to increase standards and require that a higher quality of water be discharged into the wetland.
The plant uses a multistep process to treat waste water:
1. It’s filtered for trash, then spun to remove sand and gravel.
2. Micro-organisms are then used to digest the solids in the waste water.
3. Powdered carbon is added to absorb pollutants
4. Waste water is then treated with chemicals like lime, ozone and carbon dioxide. Ozone is an important components of the treatment process because it is a broad spectrum biocide that can kill virtually all pathogens including viruses.
5. It goes through sand and granulated carbon filters and
6. Finally it is treated with chlorine.
Due to water shortages in various parts of the US and other parts of the world, water reclamation plants of this type will become more common.