WATER

5 ideas for conserving water; 1 will win $250K Arizona prize

The Arizona Community Foundation announces finalists for New Arizona Prize Water Innovation Challenge; winner selected Nov. 3.

Brandon Loomis
The Republic | azcentral.com
Cattail Cove on the shoreline of Lake Havasu.

The Arizona Community Foundation has chosen five finalists for its $250,000 New Arizona Prize Water Innovation Challenge.

The foundation, in collaboration with Republic Media and the Morrison Institute for Public Policy, will award the prize to one of the finalists on Nov. 3. A previous Water Consciousness Challenge yielded $100,000 for a team that produced a multimedia awareness campaign.

Here are the new finalists and their ideas:

Recycling water to produce craft beers

Pima County Regional Wastewater Reclamation Department aims to use the prize to construct a mobile potable-reuse water treatment plant that can travel the state turning recycling waste into clean bottled water and, with local brewers’ participation, craft beers. The county proposal notes Arizona’s reliance on finite groundwater supplies and on rivers threatened by climate change as incentives for reusing wastewater for human consumption, but adds that proving the concept with public acceptance is crucial. “If potable reuse is done incorrectly, even just once,” the department writes, “it could set back regulation and public confidence for years to come.”

Using solar heat to treat groundwater

Freshwater Systems Co. proposes a plan that uses solar heat to treat Arizona’s abundant brackish or semi-salty groundwater and then delivers through a drip line to crop roots, with greenhouse-like row covers that both conserve water and increase the area of Arizona that could grow winter crops frost-free. “By growing off-season,” the company says in its proposal video, “Arizona farmers may more than double their profits,” and would produce 3½ times the water delivered through the Central Arizona Project and Salt River Project over 10-15 years.

Reclaiming wastewater from ASU

“WaterWorks@ASU” teams the university with Tempe and Catellus Development Corp. to reclaim and treat wastewater from the nation’s largest university for reuse in campus cooling towers and other applications. The university uses at least 36 percent of its drinking water in cooling towers that could instead use treated wastewater. The plan also would use some of the cleaned effluent for landscaping. ASU says it can save 1.5 million gallons a day and simultaneously reduce outflows that would otherwise require major city sewer upgrades if Tempe continues to grow. “It is the ‘Perfect Storm’ in which to introduce game-changing, on-site water reclamation to meet Arizona’s water needs,” the team writes.

Credit-purchasing program for groundwater

Friends of Verde River Greenway proposes a groundwater credit-purchasing program through which groundwater users could pay to efficiency upgrades on farms or in other uses. Voluntary purchasers would pay for to use the water that others save, with the funds flowing to those who reduce their usage. “Groundwater is the only potable water supply for the Verde Valley,” the team writes, “and it provides the base flow of the Verde River — itself critical to fish and wildlife, local residents, and the Phoenix-area communities that rely on the river for municipal and irrigation water.”

Creating a water exchange program

Phoenix proposes an expert-developed, data-driven “Arizona Water Exchange Program” to make clear Arizona’s range of local water supplies and demands and its options for “sharing solutions” within the constraints of the law and the precarious situation of a drought-stricken and over-allocated Colorado River. The city envisions a market-based technological tool to illustrate desired outcomes and how to create them. “The New Arizona Prize offers and opportunity to invite managers and stakeholders to participate in the development of this dynamic tool and envision collaborative opportunities to move, share, exchange, and deploy the state’s rich water assets,” the team writes.

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