Xcel Energy deal trades wastewater from Amarillo, Texas, for water rights
By Joe Chapman, Amarillo Globe-News, Texas -- July 21
Ever think flushing your toilet could help power your light bulb?
A Tuesday deal between the city and electric company Tuesday soon will get
southside residents into the power-for-poop loop, too.
The Amarillo City Commission approved a multimillion-dollar deal with Xcel
Energy that:
--Hands over almost 10,000 acres in Potter County water rights from the
company to the city.
--Enters the two entities into a partnership to construct a nine- to
15-mile-long pipeline east and northeast of town; and
--Promises Xcel first dibs on the city's treated wastewater.
The deal has mammoth ramifications in terms of dollars and water supply, but
first things first: You're wondering about the sewer water, aren't you? What
would a power-generating company like Xcel Energy want with what amounts to a
big byproduct of the city?
Technically, it's no longer sewer water by the time Xcel gets it. The city's
sewer system channels wastewater underground to one of two places: the River
Road Wastewater Treatment Plant on the north side of town and the Hollywood Road
Wastewater Treatment Plant on the south side. There a complex process of
cleansing the water removes all the yucky stuff and makes it pristine enough for
reuse.
The process includes extracting all the foreign matter, sicking
bacteria-eating microbes on the water, removing the microbes, chlorinating the
water and then dechlorinating it.
But while science says the water's clean enough to bathe in, reintroducing
the "rehabilitated" water back into the city's water supply might be
too creepy a thought for people to, er, swallow.
So the city simply dumps the Hollywood Road plant's treated water into the
Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River five miles southeast of Amarillo.
But the River Road plant's water has a more productive fate. Since 1960, the
city has been selling treated, or reclaimed, water to Xcel Energy, which uses it
as a factory coolant at its Nichols-Harrington Complex just northeast of town.
Xcel, then Southwestern Public Service Co., was one of the first in the utility
industry and in the state to develop the practice, said Bill Crenshaw, Xcel
communications consultant.
The coolant is integral to the steam power-generating process that supplies
the city and region with electricity, Crenshaw said.
In fact, Xcel could use more of it, which is why the company wants the
Hollywood Road plant's treated water and wants to build the pipeline. Currently,
the company buys from the city about 1.1 billion gallons of normal water,
straight out of the rest of the city's water supply.
Crenshaw said Tuesday's deal is about letting the populace use the fresh
water for all of its needs and letting the company have access to the treated
wastewater that's just going to waste.
"We see a tremendous benefit to everybody involved," Crenshaw said.
Xcel benefits because it can buy the reclaimed water cheaper than it buys the
fresh water.
At 15 cents per 1,000 gallons, the company would pay the city $2,700 a day
for the city's entire reclaimed water production -- a lower rate than it pays
for fresh water.
And with the company no longer needing to buy the fresh water, that's one
less burden on the city's fresh water supply.
The city will buy Xcel's water rights in Potter County because the company's
coolant needs -- what it originally bought the rights for -- will be resolved.
The water rights are adjacent to water rights Amarillo already owns and is
planning to develop into a viable well field.
Such an imaginative use of resources and such a multifauceted deal between
the city and electric company doesn't come cheap.
The city will pay $3 million for the water rights. Xcel will pay $12 million
to construct the pipeline, and the company will spend another $15.4 million to
upgrade its facilities to be able to handle the water coming down the drain.
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