St. George • Washington County officials know the idea of drinking treated wastewater can be hard to stomach for some. They’re hoping a new $7 million demonstration facility can help get southern Utahns past that “ick factor.”

The Washington County Water Conservancy District is designing the facility to allow visitors see — and taste — the purification process firsthand in hopes of building public confidence in recycled water long before the district’s full-scale treatment facility comes online.

“We want to be transparent,” said Zach Renstrom, district general manager. “People will be able to come [to the facility] and actually see the process … and we will describe all the different methods that we have to go through to get to that [drinkable] standard.”

District officials tentatively plan open the home-sized facility, which will be located on several acres at the intersection of 740 North and State Street in La Verkin,“ in 2028. According to Renstrom, the plant will also feature a water-efficient landscape garden modeled after St. George’s popular Red Hills Desert Garden.

Funding for the facility will come from district dollars, a grant from the Bureau of Reclamation Large-Scale Water Recycling Program and a loan from the Utah Division of Water Resources.

Proven technology

Even though the district’s full wastewater recycling projects could take two decades or more depending on growth and conservation, Renstrom and his team say that the technology is already well-established across the United States and all over the world.

Morgan Drake, the district’s reuse program manager, said more than 80 U.S. communities already use potable reuse water.

“If you’ve been to Disneyland,” she said, “you have already had reuse water. Orange County is one of the biggest producers of it.”

In converting the treated wastewater into drinking-quality water, Drake said the demonstration plant will follow a three-step process. First, microfiltration forces water through tight filters to capture initial contaminants. Then reverse osmosis uses energy to push the water through an even finer membrane, removing dissolved salts. Finally, ultraviolet disinfection treats the water with light.

“We are taking water that has already been reclaimed to reuse standards and treating it to higher standards for drinking water,” Drake said. “That reuse water is cleaner than the raw water we get from the Virgin River.”

Still, district officials acknowledge, the idea of drinking purified wastewater can trigger an emotional reaction, especially when people don’t realize how common the practice has become. Renstrom said a lot of bottled water sold in stores is “purified water” that goes through the same treatment process.

“They take municipal water and do a little bit more treatment, then put it in a bottle and sell it to you for a lot more,” he said. “So when people say, ‘I’ll drink bottled water instead,’ there is a good possibility they are already drinking reuse water.”

Indeed, he added, the purification process for treating wastewater is so effective that minerals need to be added back to make the water taste right.

Key to future growth

Former Santa Clara Mayor Rick Rosenberg, who sits on the district’s board of trustees, said the local water supply is “so precious and rare” that the county must purify wastewater if it is to continue to grow. He further dismissed concerns about drinking recycled water.

“To people who say they will never drink it, I’d probably tell them they already have.”

Because the county relies almost entirely on the Virgin River watershed, district spokesperson Karry Rathje said a strong water reuse system is essential to meet future demand.

“We have a single limited water resource and a growing population, and water is just too valuable to only use once,” Rathje said. “This water recycling will allow us to use that water repeatedly.”

Based on growth projections and current trends, district officials estimate that its planned billion-dollar-plus regional reuse system, which is projected to come online in phases, could supply water to nearly 40,000 additional homes by 2046.