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As explosive regional growth begins to stress supplies of fresh water, utilities are turning to something both plentiful and problematic: brackish, salty water.

The week of June 18, Sandoval County and developer Recorp Partners of Scottsdale, Ariz., drilled the first of what could be three test wells in the Rio Puerco basin. The hope is to find a new water supply for Rio West, Recorp's 11,000-acre planned community northwest of Quail Ranch, which someday could be home to 60,000 people.

Farther south, the latest budget from the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority includes $100,000 for studying brackish water supplies in the area.

The stakes are huge. About 70 percent of the state's groundwater is salty, and the technology to treat it for drinking is getting cheaper.

"We know there's brackish water supplies surrounding us," said John Stomp, who manages water supplies for the authority. "I think it's the next biggest key to water resources management."

Taking the salt out of water is easier said than done. To pull it off, water must be forced through a filter at pressures of 1,000 pounds per square inch, about 20 times the pressure that comes out of the tap.

The process takes more energy than conventional treatment, and also leaves behind a concentrated salty brine that can hurt the environment unless disposed of correctly.

"The biggest issue is going to be the environmental impacts," Stomp said. Even dumping the concentrated saltwater into the ocean can have an impact, he said.

And it isn't cheap. Albuquerque water customers pay about $2 for every 1,000 gallons of water. The desalination process roughly doubles that cost, Stomp said.

Yet the obstacles haven't stopped cities around the world from employing the technology. Persian Gulf countries, lacking fresh water but flush with money, treat ocean water for drinking. So does Tampa Bay, Fla.

Closer to home, El Paso should open an $87 million desalination plant that will supply about 25 percent of the the city's water demand by the end of the summer.

El Paso taps an aquifer called the Hueco Bolson, which it shares with New Mexico and Mexico. The city's portion contains 7 million acre-feet of fresh water, but 35 million acre-feet of brackish water, said Bill Hutchison, the water resources manager of El Paso Water Utilities.

An acre-foot is about 325,851 gallons.

The resulting brine from El Paso's desalination plant will be injected into an underground rock formation, Hutchison said.

"Geology was kind to us," he said.

The Bureau of Reclamation recently completed major construction on a water desalination plant near Alamogordo.

The Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility could lead the way to finding more efficient and economical ways to stretch water sources in arid states.

Sen. Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, said in a release that the plant was built in the Tularosa Basin because the area has an easily accessible supply of saline water estimated at more than 200 million acre-feet.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.