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Old 01-09-2017, 06:51 PM
 
Location: Fairfax
4 posts, read 4,463 times
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When I lived in El Paso in the 1950's, the city got 90% of it's water from Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico. However, I understand the drought has dropped the water and not sure where El Paso got it's replacement water.
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Old 01-09-2017, 07:22 PM
 
Location: Dayton OH
5,765 posts, read 11,376,630 times
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The Rio Grande is anything but Grande, so El Paso had to find water elsewhere. The answer was not obvious, since there are no other nearby sources of surface water.

By good fortune, there is a large underground lake in a desert basin northeast of El Paso. The underground lake happens to be at a higher elevation from El Paso, so that is a plus. The water in the underground lake is not drinkable when pumped out of the ground due to high salt & mineral content, so that is a minus.

The El Paso water department built an industrial-sized filtration plant and pumps the water through the filters to remove the excess salt & minerals. The process is similar to making fresh water from ocean water. The result is good quality drinking water for El Paso, and enough left over to sell to Juarez to help pay for the cost of running the giant filtration plant.
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Old 01-09-2017, 07:37 PM
 
Location: Fairfax
4 posts, read 4,463 times
Reputation: 42
In 1950's, El Paso got 90% of water from Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico.
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