PHOTO 1
The process building layout was designed to incorporate southwestern architecture and materials, make maximum use of natural light, and accommodate visitors inside and out. A landscape courtyard separates the building from the adjacent learning center.

PHOTO 2
A proven technology for coastal desalination, reverse osmosis (RO) membranes were uniquely applied for this inland application and refined through onsite pilot testing.

PHOTO 3
The 27.5-million-gallon-per-day (mgd) Kay Bailey Hutchison desalination facilities project-named after the senior U.S. senator from Texas-uses advanced technologies to tap brackish groundwater for a new and sustainable drinking water supply for El Paso and Fort Bliss.

---

Project Description

In the arid southwest, on the United States-Mexico border where drinking water supplies are scarce, El Paso Water Utilities (EPWU) and the U.S. Department of Defense at Fort Bliss have partnered to implement North America's largest inland desalination project. Using reverse osmosis (RO) membranes, the 27.5-million-gallon-per-day (mgd) Kay Bailey Hutchison desalination facilities project-named after the senior U.S. senator from Texas-taps brackish groundwater beneath the desert floor, converting it into a new and sustainable drinking water supply for the city of El Paso and Fort Bliss. This flagship project demonstrates an innovative approach to managing limited resources and will serve as a model and center of learning for other communities looking for options to meet their long-term water needs.

Integrated Approach

• Desalination supports a holistic water supply approach. The project integrates fresh groundwater, brackish groundwater, and surface water to augment drinking water supplies. Strategically located production wells create a hydraulic barrier that halts brackish water inflow into the aquifer's fresh water zone, which was already beginning to occur due to over pumping.
  
  
• Innovative disposal solution saves land, protects fresh water. The project will help to redefine deep-well injection as a safe, feasible, and land-saving solution for inland concentrate (byproduct of desalination) management. Powered by solar panels and outfitted with backup propane generators, special surface injection facilities include wells that deposit 3 million gallons per day of concentrate more than 3,500 feet down into geologic formations with no adverse environmental impact and no migration to freshwater supplies.
  

Quality

• Cost-effective solution beats industry standard. The $87 million project (preliminary estimates exceeded $100 million) was constructed for $2.07 per gallon per day (gpd) of RO skid capacity-below industry costs. Factoring in operations expenses, the desalination project will deliver water for considerably less than other options that have been evaluated by the utility, such as indirect potable reuse of reclaimed water or importing supplies from remote areas in western Texas.
  
  
• Comprehensive planning led to timely completion. Concurrent research, planning, and completion of an environmental impact statement for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were conducted during a 2-year time period. Based on the results of this preliminary work, the design and construction of all project components were completed within a 3-year period, a relatively short timeframe for a project of this complexity and magnitude.
  
  
• Inter-industry partnership produces a new high-quality resource. Developed through the largest public-private partnership involving the Department of Defense and a municipality, this flagship project drew on professionals from the private, municipal, academic, political, and regulatory sectors in El Paso, the state of Texas, and nationally. It will produce high-quality drinking water to serve the needs of El Paso and Fort Bliss, facilitating growth and economic development, and improving the quality of life.
  

Originality or Innovation

• Unique inland application of RO membranes. Already a proven technology for coastal desalination, RO membrane technology is being developed as the treatment process of choice for arid, interior regions. Onsite pilot testing refined this treatment technology, allowing EPWU to tap this new source for its long-term water demands. El Paso is North America's largest inland application of this technology.
  
  
• Unique industry application of deep-well injection. Although commonly used in the petroleum industry, deep-well injection of concentrate from groundwater desalination plants has seldom been done in the United States, and never at the scale of the El Paso facility. Implementation of this technique required extensive research to locate a suitable injection site, pilot-scale analyses with an initial test well, and completion of a comprehensive process with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for a Class V injection well permit. Surface injection facilities that are unique to the industry were designed at each well site.
  

Complexity

• Precedent-setting project required design creativity. Centered on a state-of-the-art, two-stage RO treatment process, the desalination facility is served by more than 30 supply and blend wells; approximately 19 miles of collector and transmission pipelines, up to 36-inch diameter; pumping stations; and a concentrate disposal system consisting of 22 miles of cross-desert pipeline and three surface injection facilities. With very few treatment plants of this type or capacity in the United States, the innovative design was accomplished without the benefit of documented experience and information from similar scale prototypes.
  
  
• Concentrate injection system operates on active military base. Concentrate is pumped 22 miles across the desert-via a pipeline that traverses Fort Bliss' tank training and maneuvering range-to three individual injection wells located in a remote area of Fort Bliss property. Solar- powered surface facilities at each well site include buffer tanks, communication equipment, and valves and controls that regulate flow to the brackish water aquifer more than 3,500 feet below the ground surface.

Social and Economic Advancement

• New water supply secures base operations, ensures military readiness. The base's future operations were threatened due to the Pentagon's concern about limited fresh water supplies. The region's new long-term water supply served as a key factor in the Army's decision to actually increase personnel and operations at Fort Bliss under the Base Realignment and Closure Process. Because Fort Bliss heavily influences the local economy, base expansion was "a true turning point" for the city, according to Senator Hutchison, supporting continued economic development for a bright future.
  
  
• Research and learning facilities provide for technology transfer, public education. The plant contains a research area that houses a fully functional pilot plant for desalination and concentrate management research. Constructed under a separate project, the one-of-a-kind Carlos M. Ramirez TecH20 Water Resources Learning Center, located adjacent to the desalination plant, will facilitate transfer of technology among the engineering profession and educate the general public about groundwater desalination.
  
  
• State-of-the-art meets southwestern art. The process building layout was designed to incorporate southwestern architecture and materials, make maximum use of natural light, and accommodate visitors inside and out. A landscaped courtyard separates the building and the adjacent learning center.