In 2014, Tesla made a deal to build its massive "Gigafactory One" just outside of Reno. That move brought the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, or TRI, national fame.
Today, 25,000 people work on site, at more than 100 different businesses. But they're still trying to grow. And they're building a first-of-its-kind water system in the middle of the desert to do that.
It looks a little like an oasis in the middle of miles of desert, and the TRI team is hoping that for tech companies in search of a home, their new reclaimed water system is just as appealing.
"You can't get the big tech companies unless you're environmentally very sound, and have excellent marks," TRI Project Manager Kris Thompson said during a tour of the site. "This will power most of the tech companies out here."
Tesla was the big get for TRI eight years ago. But these days the world's largest industrial park is home to a lot more than just Tesla:
Switch, Google, and Blockchains, to name a few, have all opened up on big plots of land among the hills, sagebrush, and wild horses.
In the economy of the desert, taxes are low and space is abundant. But another vital resource is in short supply: water. It may not seem like it, but buildings mostly full of machines need a lot of it, for cooling.
The brains behind TRI saw that coming. So more than 20 years ago, before there was anything out there, they laid the groundwork for their latest project: a giant reservoir and piping system to supply water throughout the 104,000-acre development.
"This is huge," Thompson said. "As far as I know, this is the biggest industrial reclaimed water system in the US. In total, it'll be 10,000 acre-feet of water, which is massive."
One of the founders of TRI, Roger Norman, handles much of the infrastructure planning for the park.
"We just had to dig out a nice big hole, and line it, and put the rip wrap in, and make sure we had drainage," Norman explained.
That, and $30 million.
The whole system, actually, will cost about $100 million. It's paid for in part, by a coalition of the businesses that will benefit from it. Over the next two years, they'll put the pipelines in place to pump the water out to the tech companies for industrial cooling.
Where the water goes will mean savings and growth. But where the water comes from is what they're particularly proud of.
"This is a detention area for the water that's coming from the sewer plant," Norman said.
It's wastewater, that wasn't getting used anyway, from the Reno/Sparks and TRI treatment plants. Here, combined with storm runoff, it's anything but wasted.
"It's the right thing to do," Thompson said, "and this is the desert, so this will help us preserve a whole lot of groundwater."
This water reclamation project is just one of many the TRI team is working on. Thompson and Norman have offered 2 News a sneak peek at their next big project, so stay tuned for an update on that. In the meantime, to see our original exclusive feature on Roger Norman from 2018, click here.
