Moving Toward Water Self-Sufficiency

Barry Nelson of NRDC just wrote a great article highlighting efforts by Santa Monica, Long Beach, San Diego and a couple of water districts in Los Angeles who have significantly reduced their amounts of imported water through a variety of strategies, including developing local groundwater supplies, conservation and wastewater recycling. Although there's a lot more to be done, it good to see that more and more cities and water/wastewater agencies are buying into Know Your H2O.

Treat recycled water to drinking standards already!

This editorial is good - it advocates for water to be re-used over and over again, which is key.  However, at Surfrider, while we think it's great to use recycled water for agriculture, it would be even better if we went a step further and treated waste-water to drinking standards so we can drink it like they do in Orange County, CA and Scottsdale, AZ.  The process of treating waste-water to drinking water for human consumption is growing in popularity and we need your help advocating for it. Not only would it go a long way to solving our water needs, but sending less polluted water out to the ocean would mean cleaner beaches.  Watch our film to learn more.


Technology will enhance recycled water quality
San Jose Mercury News-11/10/10
by Richard Santos

In October, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant broke ground on a new water treatment facility that will produce up to 10 million gallons of highly purified water per day. The Advanced Water Treatment facility is designed to enhance the quality of recycled water used in San Jose, Santa Clara and Milpitas.

The water produced in this facility will help us meet Silicon Valley's future water demands. The facility has been designed so that it can be expanded in the future to four times its size. As we face significant challenges with our imported water supplies and potential impacts from global climate change, this local water source could be a major part of our future water supply portfolio.

The technology is impressive. Water that has undergone two levels of treatment at the adjacent wastewater treatment plant will undergo three additional advanced treatment stages: microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultra-violet disinfection. This facility will be able to produce water that's as pure as or purer than most potable water sources.

The water that is produced will then be blended with recycled water produced for the South Bay Water Recycling program, which has been providing recycled water to San Jose, Milpitas and Santa Clara customers for more than 10 years. The enhanced blend of water will help industrial users reduce operating costs, and it can be used on a wider variety of landscapes, due to a much lower level of salinity. As a result, it is expected that more customers will tap into the recycled water system.
This will be the largest public facility of its kind in Northern California. The same technology is being used worldwide to produce highly purified water for drinking. Orange County is using the same technology to replenish groundwater. That project has been running successfully since 2008.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District will own and operate the new treatment facility while the city of San Jose will continue to operate the South Bay Water Recycling program, which distributes recycled water to more than 600 industrial, agricultural and landscape users.

In the works since 2006, the construction of the facility was kick-started by the success of California's congressional delegation to secure a share of federal stimulus funds. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who spoke at the groundbreaking, was instrumental in securing $8.25 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for the project. About 800 people will be put to work during the two years of construction.

The water district is providing more than $32 million of the project's total cost. In addition to the federal stimulus funding, the California Department of Water Resources is providing $3 million from Proposition 50 funds. The San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant, which is administered by the City of San Jose, is also a major partner, providing $11 million in support, and a lease for the facility lands. The cost of construction for the project is $42.4 million.

This is a great example of an infrastructure project that is stimulating our local economy today while leaving a lasting legacy for the future. When the next drought inevitably rolls around, we'll all be glad to have this local water source available.
Read the article.

San Diego Edges Closer to a Dependable Local Water Supply

Yesterday the San Diego Union Tribune ran a feature Future wellspring? - New source of drinking water hinges on pilot project and City Council.

The article contains a great graphic showing the multiple levels of treatment that would be included in the project.

The process starts with wastewater that has already has been treated to levels deemed acceptable for use on landscaping. Then it’s pumped through a microfiltration process that removes bacteria, protozoa and suspended particles. The water then is them pumped reverse osmosis membranes to remove dissolved impurities. Finally, the twice-filtered water is exposed to UV light and hydrogen peroxide in a process known as "advanced oxidation." The pilot plant that will produce about 1 million gallons per day is expected to be in operation by April.

This is essentially the same process being used in Orange County to produce 70 million gallons per day of high quality drinking water - and reduce wastewater discharges to the ocean.

Water Recycling in San Francisco

Today, San Francisco's water utility will unveil a proposal for the city's first large-scale water recycling project, an arc-shaped facility near Ocean Beach that would filter and disinfect 2 million gallons of sewer and storm water each day for use on 1,000 acres of San Francisco land.

The $152 million Westside Recycled Water Project would be used to water Golden Gate Park, the Presidio Golf Course and Lincoln Park.

As proposed, the Westside project would take treated wastewater from the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant near San Francisco Zoo, run it through fine membranes and ultraviolet-light systems, and spread it through the network of existing pipes and sprinklers snaking through the parks. The water could also serve to flush toilets at the California Academy of Sciences.

All told, San Francisco will attempt to save some 10 million gallons a day through both recycling and conservation. Peninsula and East Bay cities, represented by the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, are attempting to save about 20 million gallons a day.

Read more

High School Students Get It - Do Public Officials?

Voice of San Diego just published two essays by seniors at Patrick Henry High School. All Water is Wastewater by Kathryn Mogk points out that:

"The truth is that all water is wastewater. The earth is one large closed system which nothing can escape or enter; everything made of matter that we deal with is recycled. Physicists estimate that in every breath we take there is at least one molecule of air that was also in Julius Caesar’s last breath. If the air in our lungs has been breathed many times before, then, as little as we like to think about it, the water that we drink has also been drunk many times before it reaches us."

Toilet to Top of the Line Purification System to Tap by Taylor Winchell discusses the justification for and viability of an indirect potable reuse system in San Diego:

"The fact of the matter is that no matter the source from which the water comes, it is all purified under the same quality standards and it is all equally safe to drink. Not only is the indirect potable reuse system safe, but it would also be economically cheaper and more environmentally friendly than a desalination option.

What is preventing San Diego from adopting this indirect potable reuse system appears to be the social repercussions associated with drinking purified wastewater. With declining amounts of water coming from vital import sources, however, the time is now for San Diego to get serious about local freshwater sustainability."

These two essays are finalists in the 2010 voiceofsandiego.org essay contest.

Water Recycling and Resource Recovery

More and more, the water and wastewater worlds are starting to intersect, as engineers, managers, planners and public officials begin to realize that "wastewater" and its components can be valuable resources.

In the San Francisco Bay area, the Woods Institute for the Environment recently hosted a dialogue on resource recovery from wastewater - specifically, how systems for wastewater management and water reuse should be defined for the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2020s. The dialogue brought together consultants, researchers, water quality agencies and government and industry leaders to inform planning efforts and align research with those efforts.

The discussion focused on state-of-the-art technologies for water reuse and energy recovery from wastewater; and ideas for use of reclaimed water for ecosystem restoration and non-potable reuse applications, extraction of renewable energy, use of nutrients and financing and development of distributed and centralized wastewater treatment systems around the Bay. Workshop outcomes will help to promote investments to revitalize Bay Area water and wastewater infrastructure, improve the stability of Bay area ecosystems, increase the security and reliability of freshwater supplies, decrease dependence upon imported freshwater, and increase renewable energy generation. The expected solutions will convert current liabilities (e.g., energy required for wastewater treatment) into assets (e.g., energy from wastewater treatment). More

Another indication of a paradigm shift in the wastewater industry was a decision to rename the Golden Hills Sanitation Company in Tehachapi, CA as Brite Canyon Resource Recovery. The company is expanding their capacity from 25,000 gallons per day to 1 million gallons per day and will send their tertiary treated wastewater to Tom Sawyer lake, improving the water quality there.

CA Water Plan Emphasizes Conservation and Recycling

California's Department of Water Resources recently released Water Plan Update 2009. The Implementation Plan's 13 objectives include:

• Use and Reuse Water More Efficiently
Use water more efficiently with significantly greater water conservation, recycling, and reuse to help meet future water demands and adapt to climate change.

• Expand Conjunctive Management of Multiple Supplies
Advance and expand conjunctive management of multiple water supply sources with existing and new surface water and groundwater storage to prepare for future droughts, floods, and climate change.

• Reduce Energy Consumption of Water Systems and Uses
Reduce the energy consumption of water and wastewater management systems by implementing the water-related strategies in AB 32 Scoping Plan to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Waste(water)ing Away in California

Coastal communities throughout California flush away more than a billion gallons of fresh water every day by discharging wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, according to a report released yesterday by local nonprofit Heal the Ocean.

Essentially a detailed survey of wastewater dumped into ocean waters along the entire coast of California, the report highlights concerns about untreated chemical contaminants and the need to move toward reclaimed wastewater.

“Wastewater really is a waste of water,” said Hillary Hauser, executive director of Heal the Ocean. “We’re using drinking water in a really bad way.”

By adapting treatment plants to focus on reclaiming water, Heal the Ocean officials believe the state could solve two problems: stop widespread pollution of the ocean and address the lack of potable water needed to sustain the state’s future.

More

Also see Down the Drain

The Future of Indirect Potable Reuse

Bruce Reznik, Executive Director of San Diego Coastkeeper, recently wrote a great article explaining the advantages of "indirect potable reuse" (IPR) and why this system makes so much sense for San Diego. It's the "recycle" part of the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra. The article also has a 4 minute video of Bruce talking about how IPR fits into a portfolio of strategies that will make us more water independent and reduce pollution.

To learn more about how we can better use (and re-use) our water resources, come to the premiere of our new movie The Cycle of Insanity on World Water Day, March 22 at The Loft at UCSD.