[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY - 1/18/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

January 18, 2008

 

4. Water Quality

 

SEWAGE PLANT EXPANSION:

Imperial unveils new sewer plant - Imperial Valley Press

 

WATER RECYCLING:

System Approved To Turn Sewage Into Drinking Water - KNBC Channel 4 (Los Angeles)

 

 

SEWAGE PLANT EXPANSION:

Imperial unveils new sewer plant

Imperial Valley Press – 1/18/08

By Silvio Panta, staff writer

 

IMPERIAL — Pledging to better serve residents in the years to come, Imperial city officials Thursday unveiled an expansion of the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

The $4.8 million project nearly doubles the plant’s capacity to treat wastewater for the next six or nine years depending on residential growth, Imperial City Manager Marlene Best said.

“It’s back to taking care of the citizens of Imperial,” Best said.

The plant off 14th Street not only satisfies state requirements but is geared to serve 7,475 homes, officials said. Before the expansion, Imperial’s water treatment plant could service only 4,375 homes.

“So this is really good for our city, and it’s really good for our growth,” said Mayor Geoff Dale, who participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

But the facility’s opening wasn’t the only feature Dale, Best and others celebrated as they also conducted a ribbon-cutting for the expansion of the city’s shop yard.

Some 2,500 square feet of office space was added to the facility where representatives from the city of El Centro, the Imperial County Fire Department and others were treated to classic rock music and barbecue chicken and ribs.

The shop expansion’s price tag amounted to more than $217,000. The money for both improvement projects came from Imperial’s capital improvement fund, Best said.

The gala event took on a surreal, if not humorous, moment when toilet paper was used for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the wastewater treatment plant’s expansion.

Officials apparently ran out of the blue ribbon typically used for such community events. Some of the attendees suppressed their chuckles as Dale cut the delicate tissue with the odor of untreated water wafting through the air.

When it was all done, Dale and Best urged everyone to lunch inside the shop yard a short distance away, to which a woman sardonically said, “Not out here. Over there.” #
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2008/01/18/local_news/news04.txt

 

 

WATER RECYCLING:

System Approved To Turn Sewage Into Drinking Water

KNBC Channel 4 (Los Angeles) – 1/17/08

 

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. -- State health and regional water quality officials signed off Thursday on the start-up of a purification system that will turn highly treated sewage into tap water, a water district spokesman said.

 

Approval for the $490 million Groundwater Replenishment System came from the California Department of Public Health and the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, Ron Wildermuth of the Orange County Water District said.

 

The system, which has been under construction for nearly four years and was developed by the Orange County water and sanitation districts, will initially inject some 35 million gallons a day into an expanded seawater barrier to prevent ocean water from contaminating the groundwater supply, Wildermuth said.

 

Later, after another approval by the state Department of Public Health, another 35 million gallons will be pumped to the water district's spreading basins in Anaheim, where it will mix with Santa Ana River water and other imported sources and percolate into the groundwater basin to be drawn on for tap water, Wildermuth said.

 

The project -- described as the world's largest advanced water purification project of its kind, and one of the state's most significant -- takes highly treated sewer water and puts it through a three-step purification process that includes micro-filtration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide, Wildermuth said.

 

The resulting near-distilled quality water, when injected into groundwater basins, will eventually provide up to 70 million gallons per day, Wildermuth said.

 

OCWD board President Steve Sheldon said the process "produces the highest quality water we can put into our groundwater basin, and ensures water reliability for northern and central Orange County at a time when alternative water resources in the state and Colorado River basin are in jeopardy."

 

Jim Ferryman, chair of the Orange County Sanitation District, said the project "serves as a model for public agency collaboration on one of the most significant water projects in California's history." #

http://www.knbc.com/news/15078468/detail.html

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