By Sean Harkins
October 7, 2010 --A multi-million dollar water reclamation plant is close to being fully operational.
The Red Desert Water Reclamation plant hosted an open house Wednesday to showcase the facility, which cost $10-12 million, said Richard Cyr, senior vice president of Cate Street Capital — the company that owns the facility.
The plant takes in water used in oil and gas drilling and treats it, making it useable for land application.
Cyr said the location north of Interstate 80 between Rawlins and Wamsutter is fitting.
“There is 400 million barrels of produced water around us ... there’s a big demand here,” he said.
The plant is awaiting a Department of Environmental Quality permit, but is currently taking in contaminated water and keeping it in an evaporation pond. The water will be processed once the permit is approved, which Cyr said should take two to four weeks.
Treatment takes several steps, including electro-coagulation and reverse osmosis. Michael Ferree, vice president of operations, said one additional reverse osmosis process would make the water potable.
About 90 percent of the water the facility receives is expected to be recovered, and 20,000 barrels of water is expected to be treated per day — with the capability of expansion to treat 30,000 barrels per day.
Ferree said in the spring, the company will apply water to a test plot of crops.
Cyr said trucks bringing contaminated water will be able to unload the water and fill up with treated water, which can again be used in the drilling process.
Water used in drilling is typically sent to evaporation ponds or put into injection wells, which Cyr said has become a controversial practice that may be disallowed in the future.
He said the plant will have five or six full-time employees, and 50 jobs were created during its construction.
Ferree said the facility is designed to expand and will have an area dedicated to testing new technology.
“We’re constantly contacted by people who have a better mouse trap, or at least they think they do,” he said.
http://www.rawlinstimes.com/articles/2010/10/07/news/doc4cad4cd743020375088997.txt
