| Austin, TX -- Today, the Texas Water
Development Board (TWDB) approved up to $800,000 in grants
to implement two brackish groundwater desalination
demonstration projects: up to $500,000 to the Affordable
Desalination Collaboration; and up to $300,000 to the City
of Seminole. Brackish groundwater is generally described as
water having between 1,000 and 10,000 milligrams per liter
of total dissolved solids. As a comparison, seawater
averages 35,000 milligrams per liter of total dissolved
solids. As the population of Texas grows and demand for
water increases, access to adequate supplies of fresh water
will become a critical issue in many areas of the state. The
2007 State Water Plan projects that by the year 2060, the
population of the state will more than double and demand for
water will increase by about 27 percent (about 4.6 million
acre-feet per year). At the same time, existing water
supplies will decrease by about 18 percent (about 3.3
million acre-feet). As a result, by 2060, Texas is going to
need an additional 8.8 million acre-feet of water if new
supplies are not developed. The regional water planning
groups plan to meet this shortage by implementing about
4,500 water management strategies and projects.
One such strategy that is gaining importance in the
regional water planning process is desalination of brackish
groundwater. Texas has an estimated 2.7 billion acre-feet of
brackish groundwater. In the 2002 State Water Plan, three
regional water planning groups recommended brackish
groundwater desalination for a total of about 96,000
acre-feet per year by the year 2050. Five years later, in
the 2007 State Water Plan, both the number of regions
recommending the strategy and the projected volume of
desalinated water had doubled to six regions and about
175,000 acre-feet per year.
Through a Request for Proposal process, the TWDB invited
proposals that would demonstrate desalination technology
advances or promising strategies to increase the efficiency
of water desalination and concentrate management processes.
The request also encouraged proposals that would assist with
the training of operators of desalination facilities.
The Affordable Desalination Collaboration project, with a
total estimated project cost of $1.453 million, will
demonstrate the use of advanced energy recovery technology,
and develop and demonstrate optimized designs of brackish
groundwater desalination processes.
The City of Seminole project, with a total estimated cost
of $1.65 million, will include planning, designing,
installing and operating a pilot-scale brackish groundwater
desalination facility using source water from Dockum
Aquifer.
The TWDB is the state agency charged with collecting and
disseminating water-related data, assisting with regional
planning and preparing the State Water Plan for the
development of the state’s water resources, and
administering cost-effective financial programs for the
construction of water supply, wastewater treatment, flood
control and agricultural water conservation projects.
Contact:
Carla Daws
512/463-8176 |
