University of Arizona researchers are looking for ways to protect the state’s water future, including plans to treat and desalinate wastewater for new use through a reverse osmosis system spearheaded by The UA Water & Energy Sustainable Technology Center.

“We really need solutions to manage the water cycle, to make sure that there is more available, potable water in many places,” said chemical and environmental engineer Andrea Achilli, the center’s deputy director. 

Since the start of this year, the state’s drought conditions have worsened. About 60% of Southern Arizona is experiencing the second most severe level of drought, facing frequent water shortages and serious crop and pasture loss. 

Roughly 6.4 million of the state’s 7.5 million residents are living in areas of drought. 

The WEST Center’s primary focus is on treating wastewater for new use. With funding from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, WEST has developed a potable water reuse system. 

The UA is in year two of a four-year $38 million Water Reuse Consortium with the University of Southern California and the University of Nevada, Reno. The consortium is working to advance water purification and reuse technologies to come up with solutions for water sustainability.  

The WEST Center receives $10 million of the project’s funding from the ERDC where the research is dedicated to sustainable brine management, improved virus detection, smart treatment systems and public engagement to water reuse. 

“The team at the WEST Center is extremely good at detecting viruses,” said Achilli, the project’s principal investigator. “We as engineers make sure our processes work as intended to remove viruses and pathogens like chemicals, too.” 

The water reuse processes that WEST employs could reduce the amount of water Arizona takes from natural resources like the Colorado River and Lake Mead. 

The state gets 36% of its water from the Colorado River and since August has seen its withdrawals of the river water cut. Those cuts are expected to continue, according to Achilli.

“Arizona is the first in line to be cut from the water we rely on from the Colorado River, and a couple years ago Arizona had to diminish their withdrawal from Lake Mead,” Achilli said.

Arizona is part of the Colorado River Project, along with Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Nevada and California. The project allocates water from the Colorado River to these states. 

Arizona’s water rights are lower in priority under The Law of the River, meaning that in times of water crises, Arizona is one of the first states to lose access to the Colorado River. 

In August, as they have done for the last five years, the Bureau of Reclamation put more cuts in place to Arizona’s use of water from the Colorado River. 

“The U.S. Southwest has some of the highest drought indexes,” said WEST research associate Varinia Felix, a chemical and environmental engineer. “But we also have some of the highest withdrawals per capita, which is kind of ironic.” 

A study done in May by Arizona State University and NASA showed that from 2014-2025, Arizona’s groundwater usage was equivalent to Lake Mead’s storage capacity, which is estimated to be over 31 million acre-feet of water. 

“The water requirements are huge, and we obviously don’t get that much rain,” said Army Corps of Engineers researcher Luke Presson, who works with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

The Colorado River Project divides water from the river between seven states and multiple tribes with the expectation that it would allow for 17 million acre feet flow per year. Now, however, the river flow is down to 12 million acre feet.

With these cuts to natural resources expected to continue, and Arizona’s drought conditions worsening due to lack of rain and climate change, the desalination and water reuse practices that WEST uses could be key in sustaining the state’s water supply.

One of WEST’s primary objectives is to clean water on a large scale in a cost-efficient, energy-friendly manner.  That would lower consumer costs while preserving the environment, researchers said.

A study by Sustainability by Numbers noted that in the U.S., if the average household used 310 litres (82 gallons) of desalinated water each day for domestic use, it would end up costing them 42 cents per day and $154 per year. 

The reused wastewater that WEST treats could be used for consumption, irrigation and municipal purposes. 

As of September, an average family of four pays $78 per month for water. In places like California, it can be as high as $91 a month. 

“Water reuse is really appealing because it can become a self-sustaining source of water,” Achilli said. “If we can keep on reusing this wastewater then we really can diminish the fresh water intake.”

The WEST Center has proven its success at reverse osmosis and water reuse practices. In 2016, WEST won the Water Innovation Challenge and a $250,000 prize for building a treatment plant in a trailer. 

The portable treatment system was taken to cities across Arizona and to other states like Colorado and Idaho where it purified wastewater to drinking water and gave it to breweries. 

WEST researchers believe that the more the public knows about these technologies, the more willing they will be to accept it, which could lead to large scale efforts. 

“A lot of the success in other places was related to leading by example and showing that you can drink the water and I’ll drink the water,” Felix said. 

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.