Eagle Mountain City has taken another step toward water conservation by converting water used to cool servers at the Meta, formerly Facebook, datacenter into irrigation water to water the grass at Cory Wride Memorial Park.
Treatment of the water requires the City to meet the standards of what is referred to as Type 1 effluent, which is considered suitable for irrigation.
“This will help alleviate the stress on our culinary system,” says Public Utilities Director Mack Straw.
The project, started in 2020, was a collaborative effort between the City and Meta to address water conservation in the state of Utah.
While the project was facilitated by Meta, Eagle Mountain City was responsible for constructing the necessary infrastructure. This setup enabled the City to repurpose a portion of the water from Meta’s server cooling systems to irrigate Cory Wride Memorial Park, a significant recreational area for the community.
The conversion of water to Type 1 effluent involves meeting stringent requirements to ensure its safety and suitability for irrigation. These requirements include rigorous filtration and treatment processes to remove impurities and pathogens, ensuring the water is clean enough for use on public landscapes.
“The state requires testing that is facilitated by our Water Resource department and tested by a state certified laboratory,” says Straw.
To achieve this, Eagle Mountain City installed several filtration units—one at the City’s water treatment facility and another at Cory Wride Memorial Park. Additionally, a booster station was added at the park to ensure adequate water pressure and service quality. These infrastructure investments totaled around $5 million.
While the current focus is on irrigating Cory Wride Memorial Park, Eagle Mountain City has plans to extend its water re-use initiative to a few nearby subdivisions. The City is also pursuing re-use water rights from the state of Utah. Once these rights are granted, Eagle Mountain City plans to expand its re-use applications further within the community. However, there are no immediate plans to expand the use of re-used water for irrigation community-wide.
In addition to the collaboration with Meta, Eagle Mountain City is actively working on another project to convert its wastewater effluent into Type 1 water for re-use.
This week marked a significant milestone as the City began fully running the equipment for this project at Cory Wride Park.
“This project had many hurdles that needed to be addressed,” says Straw. “City staff was diligent with the process and the outcome is a well-designed and implemented system that’s robust and scalable.”
This dual approach—repurposing server cooling water and treating wastewater effluent—is designed to ensure the City is contributing positively to water conservation
