텍사스의 샌안토니오 워터시스템(SAWS, San Antonio Water System)은 2016년 10월에 미국에서 가장 큰 규모의 염수 담수화 플랜트 구축을 시작한다고 발표했다. SAWS는 민물인 카리조(Carrizo) 대수층에 윌콕스 대수층(Wilcox Aquifer) 내의 염수를 시추한다.

 

해당 담수화는 샌안토니오의 주요 물 공급원에 대한 의존도를 낮추려는 계획의 일환으로 에드워즈(Edwards) 대수층에 63%의 물을 공급한다. SAWS는 에드워즈 대수층이 향후 20년 동안 지역 물공급의 38%를 실현할 것으로 기대하고 있다.

 

 

 

The San Antonio Water System (SAWS) in Texas has announced that by October 2016 it will start up a brackish water desalination plant that will eventually become the largest in the US.

 

SAWS is drilling through the freshwater Carrizo aquifer into the brackish Wilcox Aquifer. Desalinating Wilcox water is part of the agency's plan to reduce reliance on San Antonio's main water supply, the Edwards Aquifer which provides 63% of SAWS's water. SAWS expects the Edwards contribution to the region's supply to 38% over the next 20 years. 

 

The US$ 114 million desalination project will contribute 8% of the region's water supply.

SAWS said it had devised measures to avoid contamination of freshwater aquifers with brackish supplies for the desalination facility and to deal with discharged brine. SAWS geologist, Richard Donat, said it had dismissed landfill and piping to a wastewater treatment plant on the grounds that both presented a threat t the local ecology.

 

"So the best option we saw was doing a deep well injection," said Donat. The brine, Donat said, will be disposed of nearly a mile underground.

 

[출처 = Desalination & Water Reuse / 2015년 12월 21일]