Desalination

Seminole picked up a $500,000 grant Monday toward a pilot project to use wind power to desalinate brackish groundwater.

The state's Office of Rural Community Affairs awarded the grant from its renewable energy program to help fund the $1.075 million project, according to a news release.

With the Ogallala Aquifer depleting, the project would use a 50-kilowatt wind turbine to help power a reverse osmosis plant, which would make water from the deeper Santa Rosa Aquifer drinkable.

Seminole would become the first inland city in the United States to use wind power to desalinate drinking water, the release said. It could produce up to 30,000 gallons of drinking water a day for the city.

Repeated efforts to reach Seminole Mayor Mike Carter were not successful Monday.

The project calls for Seminole to contribute $400,000 in cash, while Texas Tech University would contribute $25,000.

Entegrity Wind Systems would donate a wind turbine valued at $150,000 for two years, after which the release said it would likely lease the turbine.

The rural affairs organization's state review committee, a group of 12 local elected officials who are appointed by the governor, recently approved the rural community funds.

Charles S. Stone, the agency's executive director, said in the release that this could be a sign of rural towns and school district starting their own wind power projects.