The legislation would simplify the city of San Diego’s permitting process to operate the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant, which will allow the city to move forward with its water-recycling project, Pure Water.
The program will supply half of San Diego’s drinking water by 2035 and help solidify the region’s water security amidst worsening conditions on the Colorado River.
With San Diego more than half done with the first phase of its Pure Water sewage recycling system, city officials say they are considering major changes to how they will handle the second, larger phase.
Construction of the first phase continues to overcome hurdles like flooding at pump stations and impenetrable boulders at tunnel sites to stay on course for completion by the end of 2027.
Installation of a new “pure water” pipeline has officially began at Miramar Reservoir, the City of San Diego announced Thursday. The project, as explained by city officials, is part of a program that will provide half of the city’s drinking water by year 2035. Called the Pure Water Program, this initiative uses “proven water purification technology to “clean recycled water to produce safe, high-quality drinking water.”
California is looking to boost water supply and considering new regulations to recycling wastewater straight to your tap. Some refer to it as toilet to tap, however experts in the field say this phrase is anything but accurate.
“It never has been toilet to tap. That has never happened,” said Andrew Salveson, the Carollo Water Reuse Chief Technologist.
State officials Wednesday presented an $80 million check to advance Pure Water Southern California, a large-scale, regional water recycling program intended to create a new source of water to benefit 19 million people amid changing climate and weather whiplash.
Assemblywoman Lisa Calderon, D-Whittier, Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, and Carson Mayor Pro Tem Jawane Hilton joined water district officials during Wednesday’s event at the Pure Water demonstration facility.
“The climate crisis has strained our region’s water supply,” Calderon said in a statement. “It’s imperative we continue investing in our projects focused on addressing our water needs.”
Pure Water will take cleaned wastewater that is currently sent to the ocean and purify it to produce high-quality drinking water, officials said.
Project partners Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Los Angeles County Sanitation District received funding from the state’s 2022-23 budget to accelerate the project’s design and construction, with the potential to begin construction as early as 2025 and have water deliveries start in 2032.
At one of Los Angeles’s main water treatment plants a few miles north of the Port of Los Angeles, a small-scale facility is demonstrating what might be part of the solution to the region’s water woes. The Pure Water Southern California Demonstration Plant facility uses membrane bioreactors, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet radiation to process about 500,000 gallons of treated wastewater a day, further purifying it into something clean enough to use in industry, replenish the region’s groundwater, and potentially put back into the city’s drinking water system.
MWD has been working on a new source of reliable water called the Pure Water Southern California recycling program, that takes cleaned wastewater and purifies it into high-quality drinking water.
MWD is asking for public comment on this project through Nov. 14.
The future water supply of the Monterey Peninsula got a big boost Sept. 30 when Anne Simon, an administrative law judge appointed by the California Public Utilities Commission, issued a proposed decision that, if approved by the CPUC next month, would authorize an expansion of the Pure Water Monterey recycled water project.
Could wastewater be the solution to our drought problems? Valley Water thinks so and they are doubling down on it by expanding their North San Jose advanced water purification center and planning on building a new plant in Los Atos to produce millions of gallons of purified drinking water. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Valley Water is technology to lead the county out of the drought.
Key staff from three water organizations along the Monterey Peninsula have apparently reached an agreement on a deal that will send hundreds of acre-feet of new water to California American Water Co. for distribution up and down the Peninsula.
Monterey One Water, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District and Cal Am reached an agreement at a joint meeting Wednesday whereby Cal Am agreed to purchase water from Monterey One’s Pure Water Monterey expansion project.
