Water is critical to California’s economic development, supporting environmental preservation as well as extensive agricultural, industrial, and recreational activities. The high demand for water, particularly in the hot summer months when prolonged droughts and water shortages are common, is fueling growing conflict between different user groups and regions over water availability.
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced it would invest $99 million in taxpayer funds to support the creation of the world’s largest water recycling center, a project aimed in part at easing California’s reliance on the drought-stricken Colorado River.
Federal resource managers announced $99 million in funding for a large-scale water recycling project that will save enough water in Lake Mead to serve nearly 500,000 households in Southern California and Southern Nevada annually.
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.
As drought continues to strangle the American West, some small water providers are exploring new technologies to boost their supplies.
The technologies range in size and scope. One involves towing buoys off the coast of California that desalinate water and pipe it ashore. Another can recycle nearly all the water within an apartment building on site.
The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District, also known as Regional San, completed a $564 million wastewater treatment project this summer that uses bacteria to remove more than 99% of ammonia from sewer water. The operation, which is called the Biological Nutrient Removal project, is a part of a larger undertaking called the EchoWater project. The EchoWater project was established by Regional San to comply with regulations and to ensure clean water quality. The effort also allows for the potential reuse of water for landscape and agricultural irrigation.
A recent report from Colorado River experts says it’s time for radical new management strategies to safeguard the Southwest’s water supplies. It’s meant to inform discussions on how to renegotiate certain parts of the Law of the River that will expire in 2026. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke about the report with Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.
San Diego, Calif. – Welcome to the future. That’s the message from the San Diego County Water Authority, which is developing and deploying cutting-edge techniques to maintain its 310 miles of giant pipes that provide water for 3.3 million residents across the region. “This is all about assessing the condition of our pipelines through the most advanced technology at our disposal and performing repairs before age-related defects become an unforeseen issue,” said Martin Coghill, a senior water resources specialist for the Water Authority.
Water is all around us. The only problem is that it remains trapped in the atmosphere until the right conditions release it as rain or snow. Now Omar Yaghi, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has helped find a way to grab that water anytime we need it.
