Enviro Water Minerals Company (EWM) awarded Veolia a 10-year operations and maintenance agreement to manage its new commercial water plant in El Paso to enhance the city's supply of drinking water. EWM has broken ground on the new water production and chemical manufacturing facility located next to the city's Kay Bailey Hutchison (KBH) Desalination Plant, the world's largest inland desalination plant.
This zero-discharge wastewater facility will be equipped with EWM's technology to recover minerals and desalinated waste brine discharged from brackish water reverse osmosis. The plant will take the waste brine concentrate from the KBH Desalination Plant, extract and transform salts and minerals into commercial products and produce more than two million gpd of drinkable water for the region.
Hubble Hausman, CEO of EWM, stated, "Waste brine disposal has long been the Achilles' heel of inland desalination facilities. Our El Paso project will demonstrate that it is possible to produce multiple marketable chemical and mineral products from the waste brine while increasing the recovery of potable water and eliminating waste."
The EWM plant will create up to two million gpd of additional drinking water from the waste and help extend the life of the Hueco Bolson Aquifer for future generations. Scheduled to begin operations in early 2017, the plant is estimated to have an economic impact of about $7.7 million in El Paso and create local jobs.
Source: Veolia
