Amid drought, Wichita will study whether to recycle wastewater as drinking water

Wichita could become one of the first cities in Kansas to recycle and reuse wastewater for drinking.

The Wichita City Council approved a nearly $1.2 million study to figure out how the city could implement recycling and reusing water from its wastewater treatment plants.

The recycled water could go for industrial uses as non-potable water or go back into the drinking water supply from direct potable reuse water.

Several cities in Texas, California, and Arizona — all prone to drought — use direct potable reuse water in their drinking water supply.

“As the drought conditions continue to impact our surface water supply at Cheney, we need to have a strategic and focused approach to future water resiliency for this reason,” city Public Works Director Gary Janzen said. “It’s extremely critical that we’re having this conversation today. I think the timing is right.”

The study comes as the city has been under drought restrictions since 2023 and likely will be for the foreseeable future.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly issued a declaration reaffirming the drought emergency in Sedgwick County the same day as the city meeting. The county, along with Harvey and Reno counties, has been in a drought emergency since last October.

Janzen warned residents could face further restrictions later this year or early next, mainly dependent on rainfall over the summer.

“It makes sense that we need to do everything we can to try to avoid this in the future,” Janzen said, “because right now, there is no end in sight to where we’re at with this current drought.”

The city uses two sources of water: Cheney Reservoir and the Equus Beds Aquifer. The reservoir remains nearly eight feet below normal; the aquifer is 92% full.

Janzen said on an average day, before drought restrictions went into place, demand for water was 50 million gallons a day.

Currently, the city discharges about 25 million gallons of water a day back into the Arkansas River from its south wastewater treatment plant.

If the city moves forward with reusing and recycling water, it can create another source for residents and businesses to use.

“We don’t necessarily get one-for-one here,” Janzen said, “but if we can capture, theoretically, 25 million gallons a day and create a new water supply, what that does for us long term, to be able to provide half of our demand, I think it’s quite possible that we wouldn’t have to talk about the impacts of drought in the future.”

It’s unclear though how much implementing the new method could cost the city. The city could use state and federal funds to construct needed infrastructure, but it also didn’t rule out whether water customers could be affected by rate increases.

“It very well could be looking at a future rate impact, just as we did with the water treatment plant and the [Biological Nutrient Removal] improvements,” Janzen said. “We’ll have to really evaluate what that return on investment is.”

Wichita water customers are already set to see rate hikes until 2034. Janzen said if the city were to move forward with recycling and reusing water, that could happen in the next five years.

With the city likely becoming the first in the state to implement direct potable reuse, it also would have to work with Kansas on regulations that the state does not yet have.

It’s also unclear who has the water rights to the water that is discharged into the Arkansas River from the treatment plant, or how reusing the water could affect those downstream.

“We’re going to confirm that first and foremost,” Janzen told the council, “because this takes a whole different look if for some reason that’s not what we thought it was, but I feel confident about where we’re at with that.”

The city is already recycling some of its wastewater on a smaller scale with Spirit AeroSystems.

Spirit uses nearly a million gallons of the recycled non-potable water a day from the treatment plant, which it’s done since 2015. The infrastructure for the recycled water was funded by Spirit.

Janzen said it’s an example of what could be done across the city on a larger scale.

A timeline shared with the council showed a study for non-potable water could be done late this year, and potable water by early next.

“We’ve got multiple wastewater facilities around the community — northwest, far east and then south — are kind of our main three facilities that we could look at reuse from,” he said.

“This is what this study will do. We’ll take a look at additional opportunities.”

This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 2:50 PM.