How recycled water is changing the game in Scottsdale

Once a year, thousands of golf fans flock to TPC Scottsdale to watch the WM Phoenix Open. However, none of this golf in the desert could happen without one essential thing: water.

GOLF’s Josh Sens went to the Scottsdale Advanced Water Treatment Facility to uncover how Scottsdale recycles wastewater to maintain local golf courses.
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Once a year tens of thousands of golf fans flock to TPC Scottsdale for a tournament known as the greatest show on Turf the Waste Management Open is a spectacle all right all the time and money and effort involved what’s easy to forget is the event most vital input the

Greatest show on Turf takes place on well Turf which depends on one thing more than any other none of this happens without water Scottdale is a desert so it’s fair to to ask where do they get all that H2O in summertime in Scottdale a golf course can use up to 2 million gallons

Of water a day most use less but the city has a lot of courses which adds up to a lot of water some critics see this as a waste and that’s a good word just not in the way that you might think waste is in Wastewater that’s what goes to

Scottsdale’s courses from sinks and dishwashers showers and sprinklers a small percentage of toilet water too how does water get from say a kitchen sink to the sprinkler heads at TPC Scottdale first it’s pumped to this state-of-the-art facility where it goes through a conventional process to strip it of solids and other nasty

Stuff what’s really unusual is what happens next a high level purification process that few other public facilities in the country carry out it starts with membrane filtration using high pressure to force water through tiny holes which takes out minuscule particles these are the feed pumps that actually feed the

Water up into the microfiltration unit we only run what we need so there’s 11 of them there right and we run as far as capacity so if we’re running at 20 they run at sequence to where one will be on that goes into a wash cycle while

Another one kicks on it and uh it’s about every 30 minutes they go into a wash cycle where it’s an air scour they use uh different chemicals to clean the membrane and then the water passes through the system and we head off to the next board then it’s on to reverse

Osmosis as it comes over here it gets treated it enters these vessels up front these little cartrid filters this is what a cutaway of a throw unit looks light so it’s it looks kind of like a paper coud with bed filters are these membranes are a bunch

Of what looks like paper towels they rolled very tightly these are high press units so they’re rated for around 300 PSI they run at about 120 150 and so we’re pushing water through it the osmosis process happens and these are actually three stage so we have each

One of these Banks you see how in blocks here each one of those the greatest of 1 million gallons a day that process right there is three stage so it goes through every time we get the reject the stuff that we don’t want in here it goes through again and

Again that three stage has an 85% capture rate 85% is very efficient if you look at a home unit that would be under somebody’s sink on an RL unit in their home or garage they’re generally getting about a gallon of useful R per three four or even five gallons that they

Waste this is this is ultraviolet light so as that water comes through the last step of treatment on this system before it goes to the the bulk of rwds is ultraviolet so falsis we’re actually hitting in this vessel we have UV bulbs super high intensity they cross the path

Of the water water comes through and we measure what’s called transmittance so the strength of that wave this is dependent on water being very clear because if the water’s not clear the wavelengths don’t get through it like if it should so the water coming through rro is going through here and we’re

Destroying or deactivating through sterilization anything that may be in this keep in mind as it goes through the RL process I get asked this microplastics they’re gone at this point Pharmaceuticals gone those don’t make it through the RO process it’s a very very very tight membrane so coming through through

Here then we enter and we go out to the Blends where we start we treat it again with p with uh for pH because the water coming through we need to balance it a little bit so we’ll add hydrated lime powder to of the mix to try to get the

PH right where we need it and then it heads up to the system that actually tastes pretty good does the city pumps this water to 20 courses in north Scottdale through a public public private partnership called the reclaimed water distribution system it’s an investment in their own Survival they invested in the

Infrastructure to bring water to them they also invested in the treatment facility here to ensure they can get the water quality they wanted we have raw central Arizona Colorado River water we have raw waste Wastewater effluent and then we have advanced purified water and so those are

The three blend Sorcerers in we blend them we send them corn that’s how we’re balancing sodium that’s how we’re balancing our we to eat everything right there on any given day 20 million gallons of water is ready and available for the courses but they only take what they

Need in wet or wintry periods when courses need little to no water the extra gets pumped back into the city’s aquifers the water partnership with the city is crucial for golf but golf is also crucial to the city providing jobs attracting tourists generating tax revenue the game is an economic engine

And it has gone a long way towards using less water to make it run everybody’s very jaded they think ah look at all that water they’re using it’s like oh well yeah but they’re being responsible about it you know they’re using reclaim they’re not using drinking water I think people there’s a

Misconception they think they’re using drinking well that cap water with the shortages and the reductions like we need to be mindful of where that water goes and we say cap you mean R yeah Colorado RI water so we want it to go there treat it and then put into the

Distribution system so people are getting it at tap the sophisticated science doesn’t stop at the plant the courses have to calibrate how the blend works best where and when to use it and how much we partner with you know experts in the field like IR irrigation Consultants so we’re obviously always

Looking at like something called du which is distribution uniformity which tells us how good our system is or how efficient our system is and you know that way that you know we can see yeah we’re irrigating but are we using the water that we have the most efficient way Poss City of Scottsdale is a great partner with everybody that’s on their line you know we look at there’s certain parameters that have to be met for that water to come to us and so that has been a balancing act over the last you know 10 years for for everybody to become

Partners and and kind of make that system work yeah 100% of the water that goes on the golf course comes from those Folks at the water campus the only outlier is uh any rainfall events that we have which are very few car between out here um go

Into our into our Lake system so these both of these golf courses were designed we call it like a closed loop system so any of the rainwater that goes in our adantage is captured and goes into our Lakes to be ranom for us and and you know this this

This part of Scottdale like being able to use the reclaimed water for something productive um is is really kind of a better in the city of Scottsdale’s c um at being able to put that being able to put that facility in the place and the delivery system and and you know how

It’s run you know top to bottom is is world class and I think you know you’ve had the chance to kind of see see that in the coming years the city’s goal is to remove to 100% reclaimed water and not pull a drop from the Colorado River

It is after all precious resource to scarce to waste