Decentralized Water and Wastewater Systems in Rural Areas 

PIs: Andy Schuler and Heather Himmelberger

New Mexico’s population is currently served by decentralized wastewater systems. Providing effective, appropriate technologies to treat small systems is a critical challenge to maintain public health and protect potable water supplies in rural areas. State of the art technologies include biofilm-based systems such as moving bed bioreactors, which contain small, free-floating plastic media to remove pollutants, then discharge to leach fields. ARID research on these systems seeks to provide resilient, low maintenance technologies for clean water.