Proposal Would Make Waste Water Fit for Drinking

FOUNTAIN VALLEY — A plan unveiled Wednesday would convert billions of gallons of waste water to drinking water each year to meet growing demand and protect Orange County in the event of major drought.

Officials of Orange County’s two largest water and sanitation districts said the proposed $400-million project would replenish Orange County’s ground-water basin and create an important new source of water for Orange County as the threat of severe shortages looms over Southern California.

“We need more water, and we have exhausted many alternatives to get more water,” said Philip L. Anthony, director of the Orange County Water District, which is proposing the project with the County Sanitation Districts of Orange County.

Using micro-filtration and reverse osmosis technology, the new plant would process waste water that the sanitation district now pumps into the ocean. Once it was treated at the proposed plant, at the water district’s current headquarters in Fountain Valley, the water would be sent through 13 miles of pipeline along the Santa Ana Riverbed to Anaheim. There it would be released into a series of existing ponds that act as a natural water filter and would seep into the ground-water basin below, which supplies water for central and northern Orange County.

The plant would produce 100,000 acre feet of water each year, nearly enough to supply the 1 million new residents who are expected to move into north and central Orange County by 2020.

Anthony said the board is prepared for some resistance from the public, because many people are put off by the idea of drinking treated waste water.

“Some people have an emotional reaction against it, because they think they are drinking sewer water,” he said.

In fact, last year the Irvine Ranch Water District scrapped plans to send reclaimed water through the Upper Newport Bay, because environmentalists and residents feared the treated sewage water would damage the environment.

But water district officials said Wednesday that the techniques they plan to employ would create water so clean it would rival the taste and quality of bottled drinking water.

“It is very high quality water,” Anthony said.

Reclaimed water has been used on golf courses and coursed through air conditioning systems in Orange County, but has never been a source of drinking water in Orange County. Similar projects, however, in Los Angeles County and Fairfax County, Va., have been deemed highly successful.

Currently, the Orange County Water District, which is the sole agency responsible for managing Orange County’s ground-water basin, replenishes the basin with water imported from the Colorado River and with water it traps in the Santa Ana River.

Water district board members said the need for new water sources has become urgent because Southern California might not be able to rely on a steady supply from the Colorado River or the Sacramento Bay Delta in the future.

California consistently has taken more than its allotted share from the Colorado River. But several states, including Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah, are protesting that practice because they also need the water.

Also, concerns over environmental damage in the Sacramento Bay Delta has forced Southern California to take less water than hoped for in recent years.

The two agencies are exploring ways to finance the project, including applying for grants and selling bonds.

Tama Snow, an engineer with the water district, said the cost of the project probably would not affect water rates because there would be significant savings from using recycled rather than imported water to replenish the basin.

The first in a series of public hearings on the proposal will be held Jan. 13 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Orange County Water District, 10500 Ellis Ave. in Fountain Valley.