Next Doors: Good to the Last Drop

Mmmm … beer.                     

I don’t want to go all Homer Simpson on you, but that’s where this story starts, with beer. Specifically, beer being produced by about a dozen breweries Valleywide as part of a brewing event held by the City of Scottsdale’s water department.

The One Water Brewing Showcase has taken place (except during the pandemic) for the past five years. The thing about the One Water Brewing Showcase is that it has an unusual variable. All the beer is made from water that has been through what’s referred to as advanced water purification. Which basically means ultra-purified wastewater.

Brewing beer with wastewater? Yes. And there’s more. After all, we live in the desert, and it’s no secret that water use is an issue. So, water that has undergone advanced purification is eventually going to become an important part of our water supply.

I won’t bore you with the science, but basically, this wastewater is treated to the point where literally everything is removed from it, including all impurities. So, while it may sound counterintuitive, this water that once was part of the wastewater system is now more pure than just about any other water you could find.

^{The Desert Monks Brewing Company team}

Which makes it perfect for brewing. One of the participants has been a Gilbert brewery called Desert Monks Brewing Company, which has been in business since 2018. Desert Monks not only took part in the contest, but it also makes several beers using this purified water, which it receives from the City of Scottsdale on an ongoing basis.

“We really loved that water,” said Sommer Decker, co-owner and assisting brewer at Desert Monks Brewing Company. “It created a beautiful, soft and clean canvas for us to brew upon … We’re using it because the water is so clean and so soft, and it’s purified beyond anything that brewery has the capacity to do within our own facilities.”

So, yes, the breweries like this reclaimed water because it’s actually cleaner than any other source of water they could find. But what does that mean for the rest of us? It turns out brewing may be the tip of the spear when it comes to implementing the use of this ultra-purified reclaimed water.

The City of Scottsdale has been at the forefront of using reclaimed water for more than 40 years, initially using less-treated water for irrigation on golf courses. Since then, the city has built out a sprawling water campus that produces a variety of types of water, from reclaimed irrigation water to drinking water to the ultra-pure stuff. It’s part of the city’s long-term water-use strategy, with the goal being to create as many options as possible in a challenging water resources environment.

“We need to leverage all our water resources, and for us in Scottsdale, recycled water is one of those resources,” said Brian Biesemeyer, the executive director of Scottsdale Water.

Biesemeyer said that with cuts expected to Colorado River water supplies, the state of Arizona is allowing cities to explore using water that’s been through advanced water purification as one of several options to augment their water supplies moving forward. New rules are expected to be finalized for Colorado River water use in the next two to three years.

“Our intent would be, with the publication of those rules, to have some discussions with the City Council and go in and put in place this advanced purified recycled water on a system-wide basis to allow us to supplement our losses in Colorado River water,” Biesemeyer said.

The City of Tucson is looking at a similar scenario. Without a major river of its own to supply fresh water, Tucson is particularly reliant on Colorado River water. However, it has also been aggressive about using reclaimed water for irrigation and landscaping in the past.

“We see the future of advanced water purification as an extra tool, so if we’re facing water resource challenges due to changing conditions of the Colorado River, our community knows that we may have to look for additional drops of water,” said John Kmiec, the director of Tucson Water. “One way to get additional drops of water is to do urban water recycling and advanced water purification to augment the current supplies.”

Kmiec has a phrase he likes to use when it comes to reclaiming water for repeat use.

“I like to say a water drop is a tireless worker,” he said. “If you keep it within your urban water cycle, you can use it many, many times. It’s a tireless worker for any community, so we see a diversification of our reclaimed system in the next 40 years, for sure.”

It’s just science, and it’s just common sense, at least as far as Decker from Desert Monks is concerned.

“The people who live on the Space Station are living on ultra-purified water,” she said. “Our astronauts have been using ultra-purified water because there’s not another water source. So it’s just a shortened life cycle for the water, which is great technology. We need water to live and to keep that resource readily available for all of us humans.”

As for using that technology for beer?

“If we can help someone feel more comfortable with the idea of ultra-purified water through the tasting of beer, then we’re very happy to be part of that story.”