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Alamogordo in talks with Veolia to prepare for June 2010 water utilities contract
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Throughout history, water resources in a Chihuahan desert environment such as the Tularosa Basin have been the primary limiting consideration in settlement and growth patterns. But now, energy requirements for municipal water services are also coming into focus as the nation tries to free itself from dependence on foreign oil and develop alternative energy resources.
Senator Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is carrying the American Clean Energy Leadership Act through Congress. Part of this act looks at the interdependence of energy and water and supports integrated decision making.
Producing fuels to generate electricity to deliver water through municipal water systems requires large volumes of water. Municipal treatment of water supplies also consume large amounts of energy. As water demands increase and communities consider growth options, additional energy will be required to produce and treat the brackish ground water that fills the Tularosa Basin below its desert surface.
Bingaman supports the development of “renewable energy technologies that will integrate with desalination technologies.”
Research on this interdependence will become one of the priorities at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo as the act is presently written.
“We already can do that,” said John Walp, project manager at the research facility that opened two years ago on LaSalle Road.
“That was in the planning stages of this facility,” said Walp.
When the research plant opened in August of 2007, Zero Discharge Desalination, a high-tech portable laboratory designed by Dr. Tom Davis with Dow Water Solutions and Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, was brought in for dignitaries to tour during the opening celebration.
ZDD is a state-of-the-art technology for removing the salt solids dissolved in brackish water and managing the concentrated wastes.
In June of this year, the world-wide license for the ZDD technology was acquired by Veolia Water Systems, a branch of Veolia Environment based in France, with business arms in public transport, energy and waste management.
Veolia Water operates in 57 countries, serves 139 million people, employs 93,400 employees, and had revenues of $18.6 billion in 2008 according to a press release from Veolia Water North America in April of this year.
Veolia has been in talks with the city of Alamogordo along with Dr. Davis, El Paso Water Utilities, Sandia Laboratories and others, according to Mark Threadgill, director of the Alamogordo Community Development office.
“We are still at the research stage. We have been meeting with quite a few companies that may improve the water quality and the energy needs to remove salts and minerals from brackish groundwater,” he said.
Veolia just completed some testing at the desalination research center according to Walp but Alamogordo will need much more water for its development plans.
“The Veolia tests at the research center with the ZDD technology are nothing on the order of our needs.
It isn’t proven at the next scale of operation. How do we ramp up to a larger scale for greater yield of drinkable water and at what cost per gallon?” asked Threadgill.
“We have lots of land and sun—we are definitely considering solar to supply the energy needs to use desalination technologies. The city is looking at a 40 year solution or even the rest of Alamogordo’s existence.” he said. “Forty years from now, I know the technology will be better.”
The bottom line for Threadgill is the cost breakout.
“We want to grow as a community. At what scale is scaling up prohibitive?”
The Alamogordo water system is pieced together from a diverse variety of components including springs in Fresnal and Alamo Canyons, containment tanks, and recycled waste water. They are heavely invested in desalination technologies for the area, as well.
“In the eight years Severn Trent has had the contract to manage the city water works, we have redrilled three old wells and have constructed two more new ones,’ said Bryan Caesar, manager of the public water works.
A new booster station is now on-line, a one million gallon effluent pond south of Griggs Field was constructed, there have been repairs and upgrades of the waste water plant northwest of Airport Road and new covers on the existing tanks. In addition, Holloman Air Force replaced the Bonito pipeline bring good water from Carrizozo into Alamogordo, said Caesar.
Holloman Air Force Base receives half of the water brought form the Bonito project.
In March, voters approved the $6.5 million general obligation bond issue question to construct, acquire, enlarge, improve and extend the wastewater treatment plant.
Bingaman’s bill would “require the Sec. of Energy to provide technical assistance to rural water utilities relating to the development of alternative and renewable energy supplies and water conservation.”
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