From the cover
Pearland secures its water future
The big picture
Pearland’s Surface Water Treatment Plant
After more than 20 years of planning, Pearland workers will soon be able to treat and pump the city’s own surface water, decreasing its dependence on buying water from Houston. Located just south of Magnolia Parkway in Rosharon, the $175 million Surface Water Treatment Plant will pump 10 million gallons of water per day for Pearland. In 2022, supply chain setbacks pushed the construction timeline back over a year. However, once safety inspections are passed and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approves the plant’s initial water samples, it will be fully operational to service the city’s water needs by January, said Shaun Gilmore, plant manager. Currently, the city pumps 34 million gallons of water per day, sourcing its water from underground wells in Pearland and buying water sourced from the Trinity River Basin from Houston. The plant will draw water from the Gulf Coast Water Authority’s American Canal, which is ultimately sourced from the Brazos River Basin.
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1 Ground storage: stores up to 2 million gallons of water before it’s pumped out of the plant 2 High service pump station: sends water to distribution 3 Electrical building: takes the line power and routes it to the rest of the plant 5 Operations building: holds the plant’s control center and servers for the city’s network 4 Maintenance building: holds tools for making repairs to the plant
9 Pretreatment structure: contains the coagulation, flocculation and sedimentation processes 8 Membrane filtration building: houses liquid chemicals and membrane system to treat water 6 Disinfection building: houses chlorine and chlorine dioxide, which are used to disinfect water 7 Granulated carbon filters: polishes membrane- filtered water 10 Solids processing and water recycle: receives sludge to go to belt presses for processing; water from which is added back to production
SOURCE: CITY OF PEARLAND/COMMUNITY IMPACT
Zooming in
“Municipalities who don’t develop their own means to acquire water on their own ... like we’re doing ... are at the mercy of the contractors that they’re purchasing water from,” Communications Director Josh Lee said.
significant investment for the city, ultimately, City Manager Trent Epperson said Pearland is playing the long game to have more sovereignty over how the city sources and treats the water its growing population of 130,000 people uses.
Currently, Pearland receives 16 million gallons of water per day that is sourced from the Trinity River Basin and treated in Houston before being pumped to one of Pearland’s two receiving stations. While building and operating the plant is a
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