Route 66 in the Mojave desert, California
El Paso city at Texas
Downtown, El Paso, Texas
Mojave National Preserve, California
Lake Mead, 39 km east of Las Vegas in the states of Nevada and Arizona. It is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River
Lake Mead and the Colorado River
Hoover Dam on the Colorado River
Las Vegas skyline
Lake Mead Intake No. 3 Project, Las Vegas
- Arizona, Texas, and California are working to modernize water systems and combat drought
- In El Paso, the first U.S. facility capable of treating wastewater into drinking water is under construction
- Beneath the Mojave Desert, a massive water reservoir will be built to supply a 540-km pipeline network extending from the Colorado River to California’s aqueducts
- In Lake Mead, the Webuild Group built Intake 3, a record-breaking 4-kilometer-long hydraulic tunnel that brings potable water to Las Vegas
The arrival of the milder season brings water back to the center of the U.S. public debate, especially in southern states like Arizona, Texas, and California, which are regularly affected by droughts and water crisis.
In El Paso, on the Texas-Mexico border, and in California’s Mojave Desert—two of the areas most impacted by water crises—new projects have been announced to ensure potable water for the affected communities.
Water Scarcity in El Paso: A Wastewater Treatment Plant for Potable Water
In the Texas town of El Paso, work has begun on the construction of a sewage treatment plant with an estimated output of up to 10 million gallons (37 million liters) of potable water per day. The project, called the Pure Water Center, is valued at $295 million.
Commissioned by the municipal company El Paso Water, the plant is expected to be completed by 2028 and—according to the public utility—will be the first direct potable reuse wastewater treatment facility in the U.S. that uses a specific four-stage process: membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, UV light with advanced oxidation, granular activated carbon filtration, and chlorination.
According to the utility company, the wastewater plant’s operation could also be expanded to other cities such as Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona.
California Against the Water Crisis: Extracting Potable Water from a Mojave Desert Aquifer
About 1,100 kilometers west of El Paso, in the driest part of California, the private water company Cadiz has approved the $800 million Mojave Groundwater Bank project to extract water from an ancient aquifer beneath the Mojave Desert (one of the California deserts).
Once completed, this underground water reserve will be the largest new water infrastructure project in the U.S. Southwest. The plant will supply a pipeline network extending over 540 km between the Colorado River and California’s aqueducts.
According to the project’s promoters, the Cadiz aquifer holds more underground water capacity than Lake Mead, the largest surface reservoir in the U.S., which supplies the Nevada area around Las Vegas.
Lake Mead itself—an incredible reservoir of potable water essential to supplying cities like Las Vegas—has been the focus of the most complex and important water recovery project ever undertaken in the region.
The project, assigned to the Webuild Group, involved the construction of the so-called Intake 3 or “third straw,” a complex hydraulic pipe system that draws water from the bottom of the lake and, through a tunnel over 4 kilometers long and dug 200 meters deep, transports it over long distances. Intake 3 ensures that potable water reaches Las Vegas even during drought periods when Lake Mead’s water levels hit historic lows.
