Governor praises city's desalinationplant efforts

David Crowder
El Paso Times
Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Victor Calzada / El Paso Times Ed Archuleta, El Paso Water Utilities general manager, left, gave Texas Gov. Rick Perry a tour Monday of the Jonathan Rogers Water Treatment Plant in El Paso's Lower Valley. Perry said Texas' population growth will require new sources of water, and he praised El Paso's work toward a desalination plant, as well as El Pasoans' conservation efforts.

Victor Calzada / El Paso Times Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Monday that Texas needs to follow El Paso's lead and build a desalination plant on the Gulf Coast as Kathleen Hartnett White, a member of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, and Ed Archuleta, El Paso Water Utilities general manager, listened.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry used El Paso's newest water-treatment plant Monday as one of the backdrops for his elevation of water to a top priority in Texas and said the rest of the state needs to follow El Paso's lead on water.

Perry announced an ambitious goal of bringing treated sea water to household taps on the Gulf Coast, and he praised El Paso and its water utility for setting the pace in Texas with its water conservation programs and its plans to build a desalination plant to make the abundant brackish water under the city a usable resource.

El Paso's "project will be the nation's largest inland desalination plant, proving that Texas is ready for this cutting-edge technology," Perry said to a small audience of water utility officials and others involved in the water business at the Lower Valley's Jonathan Rogers Water Treatment Plant.

Perry toured the plant to learn more about its $35 million expansion, which is expected to be complete next month. The expansion will boost its potential output of treated Rio Grande water from 40 million gallons a day to 60 million.

"I have to say, I don't know of any governor who ever visited a water-treatment plant in El Paso," Ed Archuleta, general manager of El Paso Water Utilities, said.

Perry, who had first unveiled his water plans at a stop in San Antonio earlier in the day, said Texas' population is growing much faster than its water resources and that the time has come to follow El Paso's lead and pursue desalination.

"There is no greater potential (water) supply in the entire state than what splashes upon hundreds of miles of Texas coastline -- saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico," Perry said. "Desalination will have a direct impact on the availability of groundwater and surface-water supplies in cities far from the coast.

"Cities that turn to newly available ocean water will rely less on groundwater and surface water, which will make those sources more abundantly available to other parts of the state."

In San Antonio, Perry proposed that a $208 million water desalination plant be built somewhere on the Texas coast.

He likened the immensity of his water plans for the state to the construction of the highway system across Texas. Desalination costs many times more than conventional water treatment, but as the volume of water that is treated goes up, the cost per gallon will go down, he said.

The desalination plant El Paso Water Utilities plans to build is expected to cost $30 million, and so far the state has committed only $1 million. But Perry said he thinks that figure will increase in the next session of the Texas Legislature.

New desalination plants, he said, may be financed and built in partnerships between public entities, quasi-public water authorities and the private sector.

The governor was accompanied on his trip by state Rep. Ron Lewis, D-Mauriceville, who serves on the House Natural Resource Committee, and by Kathleen Hartnett White, a member of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission from Valentine, Texas.

Asked how the funding partnerships might work, Lewis said, "Well, we don't know yet."

The governor's desalination initiative, Lewis said, is aimed at the Gulf Coast, where communities such as Corpus Christi have been considering such projects for years.

Perry also said he would support limited ordinance-making powers for counties such as El Paso that are interested in controlling growth in arid areas.

Asked about a proposal by the International Boundary and Water Commission for an international treaty to regulate the use of the aquifers shared by El Paso and Juárez, Perry said that he was not aware of the proposal but that it makes sense. "Mexico is our neighbor, we're always going to be neighbors," he said. "We're going to be using the same aquifers.

"It makes sense ... if one side's going to live within a certain means and goes through the process of being water conscious and conserving this resource, then it makes abundant sense for me for our friends in Mexico to make the same effort.

"If that requires oversight and regulation to do that, then let's go forward and hold hands, shake hands and not waste a resource that's precious to both of us."

David Crowder may be reached at dcrowder@elpasotimes.com