By Conner Everts & Kellie Prather
Southern California Cities are moving towards independence from imported water from faraway watersheds and the Bay Delta Estuary. Given the extremes of dry and wet weather with climate change, forward thinking Southern California cities are relying more on local water supplies including fully treating wastewater or sewage to the point that it is cleaner than what comes out of your faucet. These programs are called PURE Water and after extensive research and testing, state issued guidelines finally came out this year.
Ventura is one of the largest cities in Southern California that relies solely on local water to supply the community through rainfall, local lakes and rivers, and groundwater basins. After decades of research, Ventura decided to invest in a new solution called VenturaWaterPure.
VenturaWaterPure (VWP) is a multi-benefit water reuse program that will recover, treat, and reuse water that is currently discharged into a local estuary to create a new, local, drought-resilient water source that is not dependent on rainfall.
Through the VWP Program, a large portion of this discharged water will be sent to a new Advanced Water Purification facility (AWPF) for reuse. The AWPF will treat water to drinking-water standards, then it will be injected into a local groundwater basin and later distributed to Ventura Water customers. VWP is a high-quality and environmentally protective solution to the City’s water needs.
LA Sanitation Treatment Facility, Carson
There are other PURE water programs, including the planned massive LA County Sanitation/Metropolitan Water District plant in Carson, the City of Los Angeles Tillman plant in the San Fernando Valley and the Operation NEXT project at the Hyperion plant that borders El Segundo, the Las Virgenes Pure Water Project and the City of Santa Monica’s Sustainable Water Infrastructure Project. Orange County Water District, in partnership with OC Sanitation has been running full treatment with membranes and UV light and recharging groundwater for years. These projects represent the future of water in California, not relying on ocean desalination nor importing water from faraway but a local and renewable source.
Kellie is a Management Technician with VenturaWaterPure
Conner is a long time water activist and the facilitator of the Environmental Water Caucus