CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The City of Alice is looking to make its water supply drought resistant and it doesn't involve a desalination plant.
Now, brackish water is more salty than fresh water but not as salty as seawater. That's important because Alice joined with a private company to drill for brackish water and build a reverse osmosis plant to turn that water into City drinking water.
"We average about three-and-half million gallons a day, that's on average," said Alice City Manager Michael Esparza. "So, you take the summer months, where it's pretty high, we're hoping we won't have to pump water from October to March or April sometimes and just use the water from the brackish plant."
This is one of two water wells Alice has drilled to bring up the brackish water as part of a $12.5 million water treatment facility that will begin construction by the end of the year.
"Actually this is just one of our wells, we're going to be fixing to drill our second well, it's going to be about 15-hundred feet away from here," said Demetrio Duarte, Public Works Director for the City of Corpus Christi. "And once that gets going those two wells together should produce about three million gallons a day. And last forever I hope so, that's what we're shooting for."
Seven Seas Water Corporation will be designing, building and operating the brackish water reverse osmosis plant. It's going to be located right behind the City's water treatment plant off Commerce Road.
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