A new desalination plant which is costing the city of San Antonio 411 million dollars will have its first phase completed by the end of next year. At that point, it will be able to provide 12 million gallons of fresh water per day and, when the third phase is complete, will produce a total of 30 million gallons per day. However, unlike most desalination plants which use ocean water, San Antonio’s will use brackish groundwater drawn from twelve different wells. Depending on the success of this plant for the San Antonio area, salty groundwater could become an important option for much of inland Texas.
Such substantial innovations in our water supply as this up and coming desalination plant have some powerful potential for our state. As they said in the article, this is something that “the whole state of Texas is excited about” and rightly should be. The extremely dry conditions of 2011 did a lot to emphasize how easily our water supply can be exhausted since many small towns completely dried up their wells and had to have water trucked in. With an additional “30 million gallons of purified groundwater… once additional phases of the plant are completed in 2021 and 2026,” even the dry years will not pose a threat to the water districts of Texas. There is almost a 1/2 billion dollar price tag, but the insurance that plants like this can provide for our water users is well worth it.
