Like many cities, El Paso has had great – and growing -- difficulties in providing enough potable water to its residents. But its efforts to turn treated wastewater directly into fresh drinking water is “the most sophisticated development in water reuse yet,” according to Water Watch a publication of El Paso Water.

This $295 million project is unlike any other in that it makes it possible to send purified wastewater directly into the water distribution system and from there right out of the tap. Construction began on February 27, and the system is planned to be completed in 2027, while testing of the water will continue into the following year. This is a giant leap forward from the increasingly common use of recycling wastewater. 

As an article in San Antonio Express News states, “El Paso is the first out of the gate, but Phoenix and Tucson are expected to follow. Elsewhere in Texas, communities from the Panhandle to the Hill Country are considering their own reuse facilities. Colorado and California recently adopted rules to regulate the treatment technology.”

“This facility will be a game changer for El Paso and other arid communities across the globe facing drought challenges,” said Gilbert Trejo, vice president of operations and technical services at El Paso Water.

This is the payoff of decades in which El Paso Water has been working on an economically feasible way to increase its water supply. About eight years ago, it first piloted this process, with thousands of samples that were carefully tested by state regulators whose consensus was that this kind of purified water could be distributed safely to the population.

Although the water from this new facility will be similar to the costs from its desalinization plant, it will be far more expensive than water the city pumps from aquifers and the Rio Grande, explained the San Antonio Express News. This could be a long-term problem for lower-income El Paso residents (over 18% live below the poverty rate, compared to about 11% nationwide), and although the utility intends to continue to have progressive rate structures for those who have difficulty paying, “I am just a little worried about how far that can go,” El Paso Water CEO John Balliew in the Express News.

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