Construction Breaks Ground on Nevada's First Wastewater-to-Drinking-Water Plant, Treating About 2 Million Gallons per Day

en.Wedoany.com Reported - In early September, the City of Reno, Nevada, and the Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA) launched construction of the American Flat Advanced Purified Water Facility. The project will further purify reclaimed water treated at the Reno-Stead Water Reclamation Facility to drinking water standards, with a designed treatment capacity of about 2 million gallons per day. Once completed, it will become Nevada's first project to ultimately incorporate municipal reclaimed water into the drinking water supply system.

The project's purification process does not use the reverse osmosis approach common to coastal water reuse projects, but instead employs multiple treatment units including ozone, biological activated carbon, coagulation and flocculation, granular activated carbon, and ultraviolet disinfection. Plans published by TMWA show that the treated advanced purified water will meet or exceed state and federal drinking water standards and will enter the American Flat aquifer through groundwater recharge.

The purified water will be injected into the underground aquifer near Stead Airport. Under Nevada's current regulatory requirements, the recharged water must undergo underground "environmental buffering" before being extracted by TMWA and entering the water supply system. According to City of Reno documents, under the relevant regulatory permit framework, the minimum underground residence time can reach 6 months; monitoring and water quality verification will also continue before the project officially supplies water.

The project is expected to add about 2,000 acre-feet of water resources per year, corresponding to the annual water consumption of about 4,000 average households. The project uses Class A reclaimed water from the Reno-Stead Water Reclamation Facility as its source water; the plant currently has a treatment capacity of about 2 million gallons per day and has already undergone capacity expansion and process upgrades.

The latest budget for the project's total investment is about $277.7 million, of which the City of Reno plans to arrange about $70 million through a state revolving fund loan and contribute about $97.1 million from its sewer fund; TMWA bears about 30%, or about $71.6 million, and the remaining about $39 million comes from other federal and dedicated funds. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection is also providing about $128 million in state revolving fund financing support for the project.

According to the City of Reno's latest project schedule, main construction will be completed in July 2028, followed by startup, commissioning, and operational verification from August 2028 to April 2029; the project plans to obtain the required NDEP permits and begin injecting advanced purified water into the aquifer in August 2029. Related reports estimate that overall construction and supporting work will continue until the fall of 2029.