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Nevada Water Innovation Institute updates commission on purified-water support, enhanced source-control monitoring and workforce training
Summary
The Nevada Water Innovation Institute briefed commissioners on support for advanced purified water projects, an enhanced source-control monitoring program (baseline sampling completed at Reno Stead), a GIS tool for effluent management, a refurbished demonstration trailer and workforce training events.
The Nevada Water Innovation Institute (NWII) reported May 7 on a range of research and regional coordination activities supporting advanced purified water planning and enhanced source-control monitoring funded in part by the Regional Water Management Fund.
Dr. Krishna Pagila, NWII director, and Dr. Laura Hock, a senior research scientist, told commissioners the institute provides technical coordination for the advanced purified water (APW) program, runs a baseline monitoring program at the Reno Stead water reclamation facility and is building digital tools to centralize effluent-management data and fact sheets for regional planning.
Pagila summarized NWII’s history and role, noting the commission’s early funding helped found the institute in 2016. He said the organization is refurbishing a demonstration trailer to test treatment trains — particularly ozone–biologically activated carbon components of advanced purification — and continues to support the APW design and advisory panels. “This commission is the is is really what started the Nevada Water Innovation Institute back in 2016,” Pagila said.
Dr. Hock described work on an enhanced source-control monitoring program that completed its first year of baseline monthly monitoring at the Reno Stead facility and is entering year two. The baseline program analyzed hundreds of pollutants in influent and effluent and produced a pollutant watch list. Hock said chloride, copper and zinc were flagged as influent-driven pollutants because their concentrations were above 25% of levels that could inhibit nitrification — an important biological process in treatment. Copper and zinc are already addressed in local limits; chloride is not regulated in wastewater but is a drinking-water parameter of concern.
Hock said bromide has been investigated because it can form bromate during ozone treatment; the NWII team found bromide generally not detectable in drinking water in the service area and has focused sampling in specific pump-station subcatchments. A small subcatchment (referred to as Site 4 in the presentation) was producing disproportionately high bromide loads; NWII plans more granular sampling in that area and is coordinating with environmental control staff to identify potential industrial or in‑system sources.
NWII also reported delivering workforce training on nutrient removal and piloting a GIS/Power BI-based effluent-management tool that digitalizes fact-sheet content, design reports and process diagrams for wastewater facilities and effluent-management alternatives. The tool is intended to keep plan data current and to support regional decision-making.
No action was required of the commission; NWII asked to continue sampling and to coordinate data-sharing and analytical results with member agencies.
