In search of efficiency, the Brownsville Public Utilities Board announced the Indirect Potable Water Reuse project. Costing $40 million, it is expected to be completed in 2028.

The project will reroute 8 million gallons a day of effluent currently treated at the Robindale Wastewater Treatment Plant to Resaca de la Guerra (vs being directly discharged into the Rio Grande River.) It will then flow downstream into a second treatment plant where it will be processed to be reused by the city.

Allowing it to flow through Resaca de la Guerra before being retreated would allow the resaca to naturally remove impurities from the water and refresh the standing water.

This is a creative way to take advantage of the city’s natural resaca system. Our resacas, referred to as oxbox lakes elsewhere, are preserved ancient tributaries of the Rio Grande River and it’s only right we leverage them in ways which take pressure of its originator.