The city of Reno, Nevada is pioneering wastewater recycling through a project called OneWater Nevada. The initiative, a collaborative effort by regional authorities – the Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA), as well as the cities of Reno and Sparks, the University of Nevada, Reno, Washoe County, and the Western Regional Water Commission – aims to recycle wastewater and transform it to advanced purified water, creating a new water resource, informs KUNR.
Although water supplies are not threatened in the Reno area, the project aims to ensure there is enough water available to meet future water demands while protecting water quality and environmental integrity.
Advanced purified water facilities are for the most part in coastal communities; they use reverse osmosis for treatment and generate brine that is discharged into the ocean. The TMWA has been testing since 2017 a technology that uses charcoal filtering and ozonation. After successful tests, a large-scale facility costing $120 million will be built next year. The plant will produce up to 2 million gallons of advanced purified water per day; residents in the Reno area use more than 100 million gallons of water every day in the summer.
“People are watching us because we are an inland community,” said Lydia Teel, an engineer with the TMWA. “And we’re really breaking ground as one of the first communities in the nation to be looking at technology like this”.
Initially, water quality will be monitored and used to irrigate alfalfa fields. One year later, it will be used for groundwater recharge and stored for a few years, for later extraction and testing. The water utility is demonstrating the purification system and community events, with a mobile treatment lab in a truck. Reno's treated water will initially be used for irrigation and groundwater storage before eventually being provided for potable use. The idea is to make consumers comfortable with the idea, and to later explore the possibility of reuse for potable purposes. According to Teel, the Reno area could have underground storage of reclaimed water by 2029.
“The more we can do this at every scale, the less we need to take out of the environment,” said Newsha Ajami, chief development officer for research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Earth and Environmental Sciences Area. “So, in that way, we can also protect our ecosystem. So, I would say, reuse and recycling at every scale is going to be part of our resilient water resilience portfolio in the future.”
