Goals and objectives: to develop a brine management solution using an advanced designing and constructing an advanced electrodialysis metathesis (EDM) system, an electronically driven membrane based…

The Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation awarded Garver LLC a $539,720 Cooperative Agreement on February 27, 2026, under the SECURE Water Act – Research Agreements program (CFDA 15.560) to conduct 12-month pilot testing and effluent characterization for an advanced water purification facility serving the City of Liberty Hill, Texas.

Garver will perform effluent characterization and pilot testing at the South Fork Wastewater Treatment Plant to determine the most suitable treatment technology for direct potable reuse. The work includes operating an electrodialysis metathesis pilot system (provided by the University of Texas at El Paso) to treat wastewater effluent and testing a reverse osmosis pilot system paired with a brine management pilot to treat brine produced from the reverse osmosis train. The pilot testing will gather data on optimal operating conditions to inform the design and construction of the full-scale Advanced Water Purification Facility and will generate a report for Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approval to proceed with full-scale design.

Performance milestones include obtaining TCEQ approval to begin piloting, installing the pilot system, collecting operational data, and submitting the report to TCEQ. The project runs through June 30, 2027, with place of performance in Texas. The research addresses brine management through an advanced electrodialysis metathesis system designed to increase overall recovery rates and reduce total brine production, with potential application beyond Liberty Hill to other municipalities.

Goals and objectives: to develop a brine management solution using an advanced designing and constructing an advanced electrodialysis metathesis (EDM) system, an electronically driven membrane based separation process, to increase the overall recovery rate and reduce the total quantity of brine being produced. This research is critical to be able to design and build an advanced water purification facility (awpf) for the city of liberty hill which will take the wastewater effluent from their existing south fork wastewater treatment plant (wwtp) and treat IT to potable water standards via a direct potable reuse (DPR) treatment system. Project activities. Garver will perform 12-months of effluent characterization and pilot testing to determine the most suitable treatment technology for the proposed advanced water purification facility. This will include using an existing electrodialysis metathesis pilot system from university of texas at EL paso at the south fork wastewater treatment plant for initial start up and testing. The reverse osmosis (RO) pilot will treat effluent from the south fork wastewater treatment plant while the proposed brine management pilot will treat the brine that is produced from the reverse osmosis train. Performance goals. The pilot test expects to install a functional pilot test system and gather data to inform the optimal operating conditions to design and construct the proposed advanced water purification facility. Milestones and expected outcomes. The milestones are obtaining texas commission on environmental quality (tceq) approval to begin piloting, installing the pilot system, gathering the data, writing the report to submit to texas commission on environmental quality to obtain approval to move forward with full-scale design. Intended beneficiaries. While the city of liberty s advanced water purification facility is the main direct beneficiary for this research, this innovative brine management process could be refined and adapted for many desalination plants that face today s concentrate management challenges of cost, placement, environmental issues, etc.