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Water from waste now on tap in Placentia
October 5th, 2009, 6:00 am · 27 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, science, environment editor
NOTE TO READERS: The Orange County Water District said Monday it had incorrectly stated that water from the Groundwater Replenishment System had reached Anaheim wells. The water is so far only known to have reached a well that serves Placentia. The story below has been updated to reflect that.
Orange County’s recently built system for converting sewer water into drinking water is running close to full capacity, and the water it produces is beginning to arrive in Placentia’s taps — likely resulting in slightly better water quality, according to the Orange County Water District. 
“We’re pretty sure it’s being consumed now,” said Shivaji Deshmukh, the district’s Groundwater Replenishment System program manager.
Placentia residents might even notice the difference — not in the water’s taste or smell, but its effect on pipes.
“We’re putting all this very low-salt, very pure water into the ground,” Deshmukh said. “There will be an increase in water quality; it will just not be noticeable to people.”
Less salt is the reason both for the higher quality of the water and for the district’s ability to track how it moves.
The water flows into the $480 million system from the Orange County Sanitation District plant in Fountain Valley. When it flows out, into settling ponds in Anaheim, it is so pure that, even after it has percolated into the deep aquifer, the agency can measure the drop in salinity when it reaches drinking-water wells.
The ponds are called recharge basins.
“Up in Placentia, there’s a well that’s about six months away from where we recharge,” Deshmukh said. “We’re starting to see the salinity drop pretty significantly in that well indicating the GWR water reached there.”
After an initial treatment using microfiltration, the sewer water is pressed through banks of tightly wound reverse osmosis filters. It’s also exposed to ultraviolet radiation to kill off any leftover microbes — a process that recently won the district an award from the International Ultraviolet Association.
It is then pumped to settling ponds in Anaheim for one more level of treatment: percolating through sand and rock into the aquifer hundreds of feet down.
The system, which came online in January 2008, is now averaging about 65 million gallons per day of purified water, Deshmukh said. That’s close to its maximum capacity of 70 million gallons per day.
“We’re working to get it up to 70 million,” Deshmukh said.
And since it came online, the system has injected more than 29 billion gallons into the groundwater basin — some of it not used for drinking, but injected along the coast as a barrier to seawater intrusion into the aquifer.
A recent change in the system is pushing the flow levels higher. A new lift station is allowing water from the Sanitation District’s second treatment plant, in Huntington Beach, to flow into the groundwater replenishment system at night, when the flows are usually low because far fewer people are using water.
The water district is even able to estimate when the replenishment water will reach the next drinking-water well — in the city of Costa Mesa in six months to a year.
While residents who don’t live far from the settling basins could notice less buildup of salts in their pipes, the judgment is a bit subjective, Deshmukh said. And the effect drops off with distance; eventually, the replenishment system water will be thoroughly mixed into the aquifer, which provides a portion of the water consumed in north and central Orange County. People who receive water from wells far from the system won’t be able to detect any change.
(Register photo of children touring Groundwater Replenishment System in 2007 by Chas Metivier.)
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there’s a well that’s about six months away from where we recharge,????? Is that 6 months away walking running or driveing????
in water-percolation months. LOL
Finally…. A county and its citizens supporting innovative technology and our future! Tell your neighbor counties to get on board!
Love that modern technology. Excellent!
this is great! now we dont need to keep the corps from dumping junk into the environment. They can dump all they want. The taxpayer can just pay to clean it up.
But on a serious note, im glad we’re putting the technology to use.
Sewer Water, what’s in sewer water? Dirt, Pharmaceuticals, poop, ever hear of diptheria, typhus, giardia? Some pharmaceuticals attach themselves to the water molecules. They are not taken care of by ultraviolet or reverse osmosis. Ever hear of endocrine problems in frogs? Do you really trust the government to keep us healthy. They cut back on water from up north for a fish that’s plentiful in other areas! In the meantime, there’s crops failing, water rationing and don’t mention the jobs lost. IF YOU CONTROL THE FOOD, WATER, TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS, YOU CONTROL THE PEOPLE. JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY!
This is a fantastic development! See the wonders technology wields to enhance our lives and make our environment sustainable.
Desalination and waste treatment are the ways of the future. A lot of people don’t realize how quickly our water tables are dropping and the urgent need we have to increase water supplies.
To give you an idea of the potential peril of inaction, think of what happened when gas prices spiked, but imagine it with water instead and much more severe.
Anaheim always seems to be on the cutting edge of technology. This is a great development that has taken almost a decade in the making
Anaheim isn’t on the cutting edge, this is a county project
agreed. their dumping ponds just happen to be in Anaheim, probably for any number of reasons (i.e. it’s a good location which would serve the most wells and therefore people).
mmmmmm yum yum, pee water.
ridiculous waste of money & effort to help mitigate an imaginary water shortage.
Anaslime water co., drink @ your own risk.
What do you think that you have been drinking all the previous years? You have always been drinking “pee water”. Most of CA water is supplied from Colorado, which is reused from multiple wastewater treatment plants and put back into the many tributaries that join the Colorado River. This is why there are strict regulations implemented to make sure that water being put back into the rivers is CLEANER than the actual rivers themselves. This story is nothing new but, when it is brought to light, people are wary of the outcome. Thank you to all wastewater and water treatment plant operators for all the hard work.
This is ignorant thinking. This system recycles water to the point where it’s cleaner than regular sources, and you’re hung up on the fact that it was, at one point, part of a sewage system?
News flash; a good portion of the water on this planet was at one time contaminated by something that we may find disgusting. The planet itself recycles water slowly, we’re just taking a shortcut.
Move over Oil, Water is quietly taking your place in the world as it’s most precious, and scarce resource. Unlike oil though, water isn’t a commodity, but an essential resource that is dwindling in the North America, Europe and the undeveloped world. Only 0.1% of the earth’s fresh water is available to the planet’s 6.5B people, and efforts are accelerating to protect and clean up this fragile and increasingly polluted necessity.
never ending… what do you think “pure” river or spring water has been through? Probably many animals over the centuries. Sure, there are politics involved in the water “shortage”, but there’s nothing wrong with turning wastewater into tap water. It is what nature already does. Man is just speeding up the process.
They didn’t even discuss what happens when medication is dumped down the toilet and re-enters the water system because they can’t clean out the meds. This is a very bias report and it is written by them and written for them….You people are stupid sheep and cows if you believe their report.
Why can’t they t least be honest to us and give us the down side. So believe their lies if you want but I am planing to move out of this area because I FEEL that you could get affected and later all they will say is I’m sorry .
Don’t forget your tinfoil hat when you move.
Good point. That’s why all our girls and turning into women at 8, and all our boys are turning into women.
Great
Now not do I only have to look at their graffiti, trip over their shopping carts in the street, duck their bullets and listen to the oompa music until all hours…….
Now I have to drink thier poop.
After 55 years in Anaheim………Home for Sale!
Hey, never ending fight for freedom–
If the only way the water can be tracked is through tracking a reduction in salt content, then it’s cleaner than the water trickling down from upstream that’s coming from Riverside.
Read something other than political tripe, get educated, contribute something to the society that supports you.
DONT BE FOOLED BY THIS BE ING ANY BETTER WATER THAN BEFORE…. IT IS ACTUALLY WO4RSE..
THEY COULDNT CLEAN THE WATER BEFORE THIS ..
WHY DO U THINK THEY CAN CLEAN IT NOW WHEN THEY RECIEVE IT ITS DIRTIER THAN BEFORE….
THE PUBLIC IS BEING FOOLED AGAIN….
So tell me, when visitors go to Disneyland they get to drink their own (processed) effluent? Does this have anything to do with Disneyland promoting gays to migrate to Iowa? Do they know something they aren’t telling us?
At least We get the HAPPIEST PLACE in the World pooooo
Buy an Ecoloblue. Get water from the air.
Try not to smile when you serve this water to your friends & family. Me?I’ll be drinking beer. Wizzy/Dookie Water. It’s water under the bridge my friends! Bottoms up. AAAH!
Flush hard it’s a long way to the tap.
yea the drinking water may be fine, but the byproduct of this process = biosolids (aka sludge) and many companies use it to put into gardening soil amendments and people put that into their gardens!!! Gross! Since 1992, they weren’t able to put the biosolids into the ocean, but it’s okay to put into our gardens??? I know of a couple companies who make mulch, compost and amendments and DON’T use biosolids in their products – aguinaga green being one of them