Garcetti’s Hyperion Hyperbole

On February 21, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the City of Los Angeles, the Department of Water and Power, and the Bureau of Sanitation would embark on an $8 billion plan to recycle 100% of its wastewater by 2035.  This ambitious sixteen-year plan will involve recycling over 200 million gallons a day of wastewater into around 195,000 acre feet of potable water a year. This new source of water represents about one-third of the City’s annual consumption.  It will allow to City to reduce its dependence on expensive water from the Southern California Metropolitan Water District that is pumped in from the Bay Delta in Northern California via the energy intensive California Aqueduct.