Los Angeles County Considering World's Largest Recycled Water Program

"The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is in talks with Los Angeles County sanitation districts about developing what could be one of the largest recycled water programs in the world," reports Matt Stevens.

MWD staff has already presented a "draft framework of a plan to purify and reuse as much as 168,000 acre-feet of water a year – enough to serve about twice that number of households for a year." Such a plan would require a new treatment plant and delivery facilities likely to cost in the realm of $1 billion.

The article goes into a lot of detail about how recycled potable water systems work, including examples available just to the south of Los Angeles County in Orange County. There, an indirect potable reuse system purifies water in an underground aquifer. The Orange County Groundwater Replenishment System can purify up to 100 million gallons of water per day. In their draft report, MWD officials targeted 150 million gallons per day, which would make the system the largest in the world.

As for next steps, Stevens reports that following a still-needed board approval "the agencies could launch on a 'demonstration project' at the sanitation districts’ Joint Water Pollution Control Plant in Carson in about 20 months. There, the treatment processes would be perfected on 1 million gallons of water per day while officials conduct additional studies and develop a financing plan, according to an MWD memo."