Research, technology ride to the rescue of water supplies

The conversation about cleaning up municipal wastewater, brackish water, and produced water from oil and gas extraction is starting to change. For years, the oil and gas industry and some tech companies have said, we have water we can reuse. Environmentalists argue it can’t be done, and even if it can, who wants to drink that stuff?

And now, apparently, it can be done, and more people are willing to drink this water. It’s a function of evolving technology and sheer need.

Doubters should have heard the upbeat presentation made recently by Professor Pei Xu, of New Mexico State University, who is also research director of the New Mexico Produced Water Consortium.

New Mexico needs new water, she told the Legislative Finance Committee, and the usual strategy, water conservation, can only take us so far.

“Municipal wastewater is generated every day,” she said. “We can use that water, but it must be treated.”

Brackish water, which has a higher salinity, can also be treated and reused. New Mexico, unlike many states, has brackish aquifers scattered across the state.

And according to the consortium, New Mexico's oil and gas industry generates as much produced water every day as the state’s municipalities consume.

These waters can all be treated to meet different needs, such as agricultural or industrial uses, Xu said.

“We have desalination technologies, and they’ve been implemented” in a limited way, she said. “We can get fresh water.” The challenge is cost and dealing with the waste.

NMSU and its partners pursue all levels of research from basic all the way through testing to verify water quality to technology commercialization. In the long term, they expect to develop new materials and technologies. The consortium works with federal and state agencies, other universities, industry, 17 national labs, Australia and Israel. The water program is a national leader, Xu said.

One pilot project is with El Paso Water, the city’s utility, which operates the largest desalination plant in the nation. Right now the project extracts about 80% clean water, so it must contend with the 20% wastewater; the goal is no waste. Current work is focused on converting salts into usable chemical products.

Other projects involve reducing salinity of brackish water using wind and solar power and recovery of potable water from wastewater. They’re taking place at the federal Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo.

“Doing research is not cheap,” Xu told the LFC. State funding is used for federal matches.

LFC Chairman George Muñoz, D-Gallup, asked Xu how much money they need.

“We need $1 million a year for research,” she said.

“We’ve got funding,” he said. “We just need to get it to you.” Legislators budgeted for desalination in the last session.

That was an unusual exchange. Muñoz’s duty is to parcel out money carefully. LFC support underscores the need across the state for desalination and the new water it promises.

The city of Las Vegas, because of last year’s forest fires, must contend with increased contaminants along with the usual challenges of supply and climate change. Now, according to Source New Mexico, an online news outlet, Las Vegas is working with the state Environment Department on water reuse.

The department says about 78% of New Mexicans rely on ground water, which can be precarious. The department would like communities to have more than one source of water, and recycled water counts. Las Vegas plans to use some of its federal reparation to treat wastewater.

Muñoz sees desalination plants helping support the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project. I don’t have space here to list the communities the process could help.

Water experts caution that recycled water is no silver bullet and can’t replace existing supplies, but in a dry future, it can stretch supplies a little farther.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Research, technology ride to the rescue of water supplies