Spirit AeroSystems, Wichita unveil plan for using treated wastewater

City officials announced Thursday that Spirit AeroSystems will tap into Wichita’s treated wastewater in lieu of using drinking water for its manufacturing of aircraft parts.

The joint water conservation plan calls for Spirit to pay for the design and construction of a 2-mile-long pipeline — at a cost of about $4 million — that will transport the treated wastewater to Spirit’s South Oliver plant.

The plan, Spirit and city officials said, will be free of additional costs to other water users and will reduce Spirit’s consumption of the city’s potable — or drinking — water supply by 70 percent.

It also will provide a new source of revenue for the city because it will be “selling a product to Spirit that we were throwing away in the river,” Mayor Jeff Longwell said.

“The reality is it’s a very big commitment on Spirit’s part,” he said. “This isn’t something that helps us tomorrow or next year. This is something that is a long-term commitment that really is a statement piece for Spirit’s commitment to Wichita.”

The proposed plan is expected to be reviewed by the City Council at its Dec. 15 meeting.

Spirit officials said they hope to be ready to use the pipeline by the fourth quarter of 2016.

“This really helps Spirit be more competitive,” said Spirit spokeswoman Deborah Gann. “It helps us secure a long-term water supply, and it helps individuals because it creates more capacity for growth.

“It’s the right thing to do environmentally, and it’s the right thing to do for our business.”

The move also is expected to lower Spirit’s water bill, Gann said, because it won’t be paying as much for the wastewater. Gann said Spirit will pay 50 cents for each 1,000 gallons of wastewater, in addition to the costs of the new pipeline.

She said Spirit will pay “millions” of dollars more in infrastructure costs to accept and deliver the new water source at the company’s plant.

“This had to be rate neutral for ratepayers,” she said. “That’s the reason we are paying for the infrastructure.”

According to city data, Spirit is Wichita’s biggest commercial user of water. In 2014 Spirit used 565 million gallons of Wichita water.

“We can’t build airplanes without water,” Gann said, adding that Spirit uses water for cooling, humidity control and equipment such as autoclaves.

Spirit already has in place a reverse-osmosis facility that allows the company to recycle 2 million gallons of water a day. That facility has been in place since 1998, and between then and now, the company said, the plant — which prior to 2005 was owned by Boeing Commercial Airplanes — has recycled 10 billion gallons of water.

Using wastewater instead of potable water will augment and enhance the company’s water conservation efforts, Gann said.

She said Spirit is confident the wastewater it will be using will not adversely affect its equipment, adding that the wastewater will be treated twice by the city with ultraviolet light and chlorine before it reaches the plant at Spirit, where it will be treated a third time.

Spirit and the city have been working toward this arrangement for more than five years, Gann and Longwell said.

“To get to this point, we are thrilled,” Gann said.

Longwell said the arrangement with Spirit is a first, and the city is not in discussions “at this point” with other companies that might be interested in using wastewater for their work.

“But who knows what … doors this will open up in the future?” he said.

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Spirit AeroSystems, Wichita unveil plan for using treated wastewater."