León, Guanajuato state, Mexico – Under construction, indirect potable reuse with regenerated water in León Municipal ERA (Water Regeneration Station)

The Indirect Potable Reuse project in the City of León proposes a sustainable alternative for supply in the face of drought events and water stress from conventional sources.

Using nanotechnology in full-scale pilot tests, where, through a multi-barrier process at the molecular level, the removal of the main contaminants present in wastewater, including PFAS, has been successfully achieved to give rise to reclaimed water with characteristics similar to natural water, which will be discharged from the ETAPA “Municipal” (Water Regeneration Station), into the El Palote reservoir to be used through a water treatment plant ETAPA (Advanced Treatment Station for Purifying Water).

In this facility, the purification process has been reinforced through the implementation of dissolved air flotation systems and advanced oxidation systems, with ozone, activated carbon, ultraviolet light and sodium hypochlorite, for the removal of emerging pollutants and drugs, whose presence can pose a risk to the environment and human health.

The project has had the participation of international experts and prestigious institutions, such as the NEWT in which the universities of Yale, Rice, Arizona State and The University of Texas at El Paso participate. It also has the support of KWR (Water Research Institute) of the Netherlands, which participates in water quality consultancies and analyses.

The management of the project has been carried out in a cautious and responsible manner and in the face of the existing legal vacuum in terms of reuse, following as a model the regulations of Texas, which for a decade has allowed direct and indirect potable reuse.

The construction is expected to be finished by the end of this 2024 and began operations in early 2025 to produce 0.57 million litres per day (0.15 million gallons per day) to supply 252,000 inhabitants (14% of the entry population) in the north area of the City of León, Guanajuato in Mexico.