Water is precious in Nevada, the most arid state in the nation.
Sage Hiibel learned this as a child growing up on his family’s ranch in the farming community of Fallon. Now an associate professor of chemical engineering, Hiibel researches water reuse in the industrial sector — just one way to address the region’s growing need for the resource.
Hiibel and other ҹɫƵ engineering faculty are featured in “Water Masters,” a 30-minute documentary that debuted at a Dec. 4 screening in Morrill Hall. Produced by Emmy-winning director Dan Druhora, "Water Masters" highlights research being done at the College of Engineering’s Nevada Center for Water Resiliency (NCWR).
Hiibel, who directs the NCWR and who still lives in Fallon — about 65 miles downstream of Reno — appears at the film’s opening, roping a steer.
“Yes, that’s an opening shot (of me) roping the steer; I’m just gonna pretend that I didn’t fall off,” Hiibel joked at the screening.
The documentary highlights water use along the Truckee River Watershed, the water system connecting Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake. The film examines the concept of upstream and downstream users, touching on the increased demand for water driven by population growth and industrial expansion.
Environmental engineering professor Eric Marchand, who co-directs the NCWR and appears in the documentary, highlights challenges in the region on both ends of the spectrum, from flooding risks to the possibility of an extended drought.
“Water reuse has the potential to safeguard and protect communities, particularly in the arid West, where limited water resources can be a challenge,” Marchand said. “Researchers in our center are working collaboratively with regional utilities to expand water reuse in Northern Nevada.”
Environmental engineering Professor Krisha Pagilla also appears in the film, along with Lydia Teel, supervisor of Emerging Resources at the Truckee Meadows Water Authority; Benjamin Shawcroft, general manager of the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District; Richard Bass, a farmer in Fallon; materials science engineering Associate Professor Krista Carlson; and Steven Wadsworth, chairman of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.
The film’s title plays on an actual office, federal water master, a role established in 1926 by federal court order to manage water resources on Lake Tahoe and the Truckee and Carson rivers.
“Water is everything in Nevada,” Shawcroft says in the film. “In Nevada, it is more valuable than any precious mineral you can come across in the hills.”
Direct potable reuse — it could be coming!
Nevada is the most arid state in the nation, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, a statement uttered in the film more than once. To preserve this resource, wastewater is treated and reused for non-potable purposes, or non-drinking uses, in the Truckee Meadows.
The NCWR’s long-term goal, however, is direct potable reuse.
“We’d take wastewater, we’ll treat it, and then it could be ready for human consumption right away,” Hiibel said.
Hiibel and Marchand are looking at different aspects of wastewater treatment, along with these eight other Engineering faculty associated with the NCWR: Pagilla and Carlson, who both appear in the “Water Masters” film, as well as Charles Coronella, Keith Dennett, David Hanigan, M. Rashed Khan, Ben Ma and Victor Vasquez.
“We are all looking at either different technologies to treat the water, or in some cases, researchers are looking at new ways to quantify and characterize some of the emerging contaminants,” Hiibel said.
Some of this research, particularly research that involves larger-scale testing, is conducted at the NCWR facility on Valley Road, a lab supported with grant funding from the U.S. Army Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC).
In addition to funding the NCWR, the Army ERDC is a research partner. The two agencies are in the Water Reuse Consortium, an organization that includes the University of Arizona and the University of Southern California (USC) — which leads back to “Water Masters.”
‘Flowing Forward’
Druhora, the director, is also a lecturer at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, one of the Water Reuse Consortium partners. His work involves documenting the future of water reuse and climate resilience. To that end, he’s developed a four-part film series, ‘Flowing Forward,’ featuring each of the consortium partners. USC was featured in the first film, ‘Mountaintop to Metropolis,’ and the University of Arizona in the second, ‘Shared Water.’ ‘The Water Masters’ is the third in the series, and a fourth film, featuring the Army ERDC, is in the works.
“It tells different stories of water use from different areas and different groups,” Hiibel said of the series. “The idea is to make (the research) more approachable … to show the human side of it.
“I think what I would like people to take from our specific episode is just how important water is, and how precious it is,” he added.
