Texans turn to new technology as wells run dry

TEXAS — Texans are growing concerned about water. Between droughts, a growing population and large industrial projects like data centers, water wells are going dry and dozens of rural homeowners are exploring other ways to get water.

Access to water is something that can easily be taken for granted.

“We basically, you know, limit our showers,” said David Scales, a San Antonio resident.

“We have buckets all over the house,” said Gladys Scales, David’s wife.

Those buckets are to collect water during rain showers, and they are taking these measures after the well on their property ran dry about a year ago.  

“That was our sole source of water,” David said.

If they wanted better access to the aquifer, the couple would have had to dig another well and were quoted about $70,000 to do that, only to risk the new well running dry too.

“It was viable,” David said. “We just said we didn’t like it.”

When exploring other options, the couple learned about technology that turns humidity in the air into water and installed an Aquaria Hydropack for about half the amount it would have cost to dig a new well. 

The Aquaria Hydropack on the left and well to the right are both connected to the Scales' water storage tank in the middle. (Spectrum News 1/Geraldine Torrellas-Piñero)

“We bring in the air, we filter it, extract the humidity and then the drier, cleaner air comes out of the top and goes back out,” said Chris Christal, the vice president of sales for Aquaria.

UV lights in the machine’s storage tank purify the water before its final steps.

“We are pumping the water from this machine into their external storage tank before it gets pumped into the house when they call for water with a faucet, a shower or something like that,” Christal said.

On average, the machine in Central Texas produces about 170 gallons a day, providing an option in an area where people are growing concerned about water, particularly when it comes to data centers popping up in the area.

According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, warehouse-sized data centers can use up to 5 million gallons of water per day.

“There are 200 more times the amount of water in the air than we can ever use,” Christal said. “Our machine allows you to grab some of that water instead of using our precious groundwater in cities where it’s dense, we’re all putting straws into the same aquifer.”

The Scales family is now one less household drawing water from the Edwards Aquifer.

“This is a way to become relatively independent,” David said. “That’s one of our goals was to become, as much as possible, energy and water and resource independent here.”

Harvesting water from the air is not the only solution, but it is part of a solution to address water shortage concerns.