(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] What if what went down here, ended up here?
It might sound kind of gross at first,
but it's one of the most innovative ideas in water supply
and it's totally safe.
But a skeptical public has doomed the idea
pretty much everywhere it's been tried.
Except for El Paso, Texas.
El Paso is poised to become the first major city
in the United States to build
a completely closed loop system.
Wastewater will be cleaned at a treatment plant,
be put through an advanced purification process,
and go right back into the water supply.
- The wastewater that we treat it's residential wastewater
that folks flush down the toilet, goes down the sink,
and it also treats the water from our industrial customers.
I'll take this time to say do not flush wipes
of any sort down the drain or down the toilet, please.
The water we're gonna produce
out of the advanced water purification plant
is the safest water that could be produced
through treatment processes nowadays.
- [Narrator] It's a bold step,
but faced with persistent drought,
they believe it's necessary to make sure
that every time you turn on the tap,
drinkable water comes out.
This is "Just Might Work,"
a show about surprising solutions to our biggest problems.
- There's always been what would be considered
massive drought here in this region.
El Paso's considered high desert.
We average nine inches a year of rainfall,
so it's very much an arid environment.
It's dry.
- [Narrator] According to the World Health Organization,
around 55 million people are affected by drought every year.
In periods of drought,
groundwater sources aren't being adequately replenished.
This can lead to a water crisis
where communities are forced into rationing
or energy intensive options like importing water.
But not in El Paso.
Despite persistent drought, they've kept the water running
without turning to emergency measures.
- We are in severe drought mode
and planning mode and operation mode all the time.
And that's one of the reasons why we're viewed as a model
for water resources planning across the country.
- [Narrator] While other communities have responded
to crises after they occur,
El Paso has worked to make sure
a supply crisis never happens.
This started with an aggressive campaign to reduce use,
including paying customers to replace
water-intensive landscaping.
Over the last 30 years, water use in El Paso
has been cut by 35%.
They've also built the largest inland desalination plant
in the world to treat brackish water in its aquifer.
So with an eye toward the future,
they're turning to one of the most controversial ideas
in water supply: A completely closed loop.
The technical term for the process is direct potable reuse,
but in El Paso the program is dubbed
advanced water purification.
The full process begins
at one of their existing wastewater treatment plants.
- The Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Plant
is two plants in one.
It's a wastewater treatment plant.
And then there's the water treatment plant
on the other side.
- [Narrator] The steps at the conventional treatment plant
are long established practices.
Solid waste is filtered out
and settles to the bottom in huge tanks.
The water is further treated by biological organisms
that feed on the waste and convert it into carbon dioxide.
Then chlorine disinfects the water
to kill viruses and pathogens.
And this is what would be used for irrigation
or released back into the aquifer.
But soon, that will go directly
to El Paso's facility for advanced purification
for three additional layers of treatment.
- The advanced water purification plant
what it does is it's gonna use what's known in the industry
as Full Advanced Treatment.
Reverse osmosis membranes are best known for salt removal,
but along with that, because of the pressure that's used,
the membranes that are used,
we remove a lot of contaminants.
We're gonna use ultraviolet light
with the addition of hydrogen peroxide
to enhance the disinfection properties
of the ultraviolet light.
After the ultraviolet light is granular activated carbon.
Granular activated carbon has been proven to be
one of the most effective ways to treat water
to remove organics.
- [Narrator] The advanced purification plant
will also have safety protocols above and beyond
what is required by the books.
Traditional safety monitoring is point in time
where samples are taken at certain intervals
and tested for quality.
But the El Paso plant will have real time
constant quality monitoring.
- So we'll be able to see trends constantly
of the water quality, different parameters all the time,
so that we can make decisions on how to correct that
before it gets anywhere near a water quality level
that is gonna be unacceptable.
We're going to produce about 8 million gallons of this water
for our customers per day,
which represents about 6% of the total water
that could be in our system at any point in time.
- [Narrator] While a closed loop system has been floated
in other cities,
public perception has consistently torpedoed
any attempt to implement it.
But El Paso's long history of innovation
to secure their water supply under extreme circumstances
has built an unprecedented level of trust in the community,
a level that has led to almost universal support
of the advanced purification plant.
- We do our project out of diversification, not desperation.
We have a hundred million gallons of wastewater
that float to our facilities every day.
And this is true for facilities all over the country.
I think that once we show that we can treat this water
reliably and safety and reuse it directly to our customers,
it's gonna open a lot more doors for us
to do this at our other wastewater treatment plants
and our water reclamation facilities.
We owe it to our customers to be efficient
with every drop of water that we have,
and advanced water purification
is gonna allow us to do that.
- [Narrator] Thanks for watching this episode
of "Just Might Work."
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