Up to $20 million in federal funding is being awarded to the building of a high-tech facility in El Paso that will transform treated wastewater into safe and fresh drinking water.
The Advanced Water Purification Facility belongs to the El Paso Water company and is expected to see construction launch early next year.
As planned, the facility, which is also designed to conserve available water resources, will be capable of treating up to 10 million gallons per day of secondary effluent as part of a process producing purified water.
That water will then be introduced into the company’s larger potable water distribution system.
The new facility will be located on an existing campus that will also include a surface water treatment plant and wastewater treatment plant.
The funding, authorized by the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is coming through the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which altogether is receiving more than $8.3 billion to support water delivery systems and dam upgrades nationally.
In the just-announced round of funding, just under $310 million will be going to 25 individual water projects regionally.
In a statement, Tanya Trujillo, Assistant Secretary for Water and Science with the Department of the Interior, said the Bureau of Reclamation funding for a variety of projects throughout the West represents the “largest investment in the resilience of physical and natural systems in American history.”
By Garry Boulard
