I was one of several persons invited to tour the Orange County Water Replenishment System (GWRS) this morning. I learned a great deal about the water I take for granted everyday and will share that information with you.
Here is a little history about the facility: It opened in 2008 and is next door to the Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD) in Fountain Valley. The two work together to bring clean drinking water to you and me. GWRS is the first facility of its kind in the world and they get 4,000 visitors every year! I thought all communities recycled their sewage, aka: turn dirty water in to potable water (if you don’t know what potable water is, it’s water that is safe to drink), but that is simply not true. For instance, Los Angeles county does not have a treatment plant. All their sewage ends up in our ocean. Yuck! Anyone want to go for a nice swim?
The project cost $480 million to build. Here is the breakdown of who paid what: $20 million came from the federal government; $69 million came from the State of California; OCSD and GWRS each paid $196 million.
I know that sounds like a lot of money BUT it actually is the cheapest way to bring water to its customers, which are the surrounding cities in OC, who in turn sell it to you and me. It costs $450 an acre foot compared to a desal plant (like the proposed Poseidon plant) which is $1850 an acre foot. GWRS is also environmentally sound. A desal plant is destructive to marine life living along the coast. I don’t think many fish are sucked in to the pipes at GWRS (unless someone flushes Nimo down their toilet). We also don’t have to have water imported, thereby decreasing our energy footprint.
Two-thirds of our water comes from OC Water Department, who buys the recycled water and the rest is from the Municipal Water Department.
One of the major benefits that I think is important, is that the sewage water is recycled in to potable water and not sent directly to the ocean. It’s a more environmentally responsible way of dealing with our waste.
You’re probably dying to know how sewage from your home turns in to delicious drinking water that comes out of your kitchen faucet. Well here goes: The dirty water that goes down your drain (and toilet) ends up at the OCSD. They send it via underground pipes to GWRS that processes out the nasty stuff.
The first step starts underground. Sewage is sent from OCSD through pipes that end up in the blue tanks. The blue tanks have little scrubbers (called microfiltration) inside them that clean and separate the brine (salty wastewater).
The water then flows back up through those pipes. The foam you see is in the picture is brine. The whole process takes out 85% of the gunk and sends the rest back to OCSD.
Then its off to other smaller tanks in another building for some reverse osmosis.
The final process is done with ultra violet rays, mixed with hydrogen peroxide.
At the end of the tour we got to sample the finished product. I must say, the water tasted pretty good.
I would like to thank Gina Ayala and Becky Mudd from GWRS for helping me maneuver through the facility and answering all my questions (and I had a lot).
So, if someone asks you if you know where your drinking water comes from, you can say, “Yes! And let me tell you how it’s done.”
My understanding is that all the water made from toilet water is pumped to Anaheim and dumped into the Santa Ana river and not one drop is sent to homes.
The water we get is pumped from far below and then reprocessed before being sent to homes. Kind of hard to come up with cost figures when you are only looking at one step that others paid the most of the costs of the plant.
That isn’t quite correct cook – The perfectly wholesome water (I’ve drank it, just like the people in the article) is pumped to Anaheim, where the soil is appropriate for percolation into the aquifer. It doesn’t go into the SA river.
Much of the water pumped from far below is that water.
The GWRS water could be put directly into the water supply. It is done frequently in other countries, and also in Texas.
world renowned facility brought to us by OCWD and the expansion is not far off from coming on line. Again, thanks to the Board of Directors at OCWD. Desalination is the next logical step for water supply.
Speaking of water supply, the “rest” of our water comes from a myriad of sources besides the GWRS. Rainfall onto the Santa Ana river percolates into our basin for recharge. It is the largest source. Met water is also purchased to put in the basin for replenishment and it is good to note that the wisdom of the OCWD Board of Directors led to millions of dollars in recent purchases of met water from the basin.
We should all be very thankful to the Board of Directors for the excellent management of our basin serving over 3 million residents. Huge challenges are in our future and the purchase of desalination water to put in the basin mix looks like the next logical step.
sure DWM… how much more money are you willing to pay to Poseidon for the privilege to drink their water? Oh, that’s right the Nestle CEO (who now bottles water) says “water is not a human right.” They have a bottling plant in the desert right here in California. Did you read the part where it will cost 3 times as much than what we have now???
How about doing something logical…. like stop pissing all over the planet??? We are in this drought mess because of our behavior.
inge, I read the part about tripling the cost. hilarious. basic math tells anyone that supplementing our basin with water that costs three times as much (and it will be way less than that)as met water will only result in a tripling if it replaces ALL the water. since it will add 10 percent more water, you have to blend the prices of each source, correct? that cannot result in a tripling. ten units at X plus one unit at 3x equals 11 units at 13X , not 30X. elementary.
this is the cost for reliability.
there are hundreds of desal plants in the world, thousands if you count small ones. they will be built here in southern California. Nevada would probably buy all of it when they run dry. farmers in central valley are currently bidding over 1200 dollars an acre foot for water.
Investment in desal, particularly when desal water has to be purchased before any other source of water, deprives other cheaper alternatives from investment. This substantially raises long term costs.
Your blending position is incomplete. It makes no sense to buy the most expensive option for anything first, particularly when other cheaper options are still largely unconstrained.
Tripling the marginal cost, Deady.
If the Poseidon plant were really something that would kick in only when needed, then (if we put aside the ecological aspects of it) one could try to make an economic case for it. But … it’s not! And, by the way, how much would it cost to truck water to Nevada — or do you have a pipeline in mind?
Nestle is in the water business for all the wrong reasons.
We are in this drought mess because of geo-engineering plain and simple.
Things are going to get a whole lot worse as well with the water situation.
http://thefullertoninformer.com/californias-geo-engineered-drought/
“Desalination is the next logical step for water supply.”
The only thing dumber than saying that once is saying it repeatedly.
Harsh, but well put.
Desalination is the most expensive and energy intensive way of producing potable water the world has ever seen.
It is not, and never will be, an appropriate solution for Orange County.
*As usual…..you are so far off…..that we wonder why you haven’t thought of shipping water to the moon on the Space Shuttle. Good grief you paid off excuses for the OCWD….are truly amazing citizens.
Inge, great, great information and between all the misrepresentations of Cook and Ryan and the DWM you gotta hope no one ever reads these comments. First off, the GRP…….uses water pump into the ground by the coast to create the very inefficient barrier to the incursion of sea water into our ground wells and water table. To replenish the wells throughout the County….water is supposedly pumped into the water table up in Anaheim alright…..and allowed to soak into the ground and seep 15 down to the empty wells with all the perchlorates, MTBE’s, Arsenic and other wonderful stuff including the added high content bleach, anti-biotics and more rocket fuel that babies can ingest through mother’s milk. You people are so cheap you stink. Desal creates pure water, not toilet to tap and makes sure that our over-all health will be better. Are you really willing to rely on electeds and bureaucrats that have lots of axes to grind to take charge of our health and well being? Hey, you kid your pals and we will kid ours. Desal and HSR are coming whether you like it or don’t!!!
Ship, you’re crazy.
*What do they say? Whoever smelt it …..dealt it!
Thank you for bringing intellectual clarity to this fascinating but complicated issue. I will certainly recommend this site to my friends.
Since desalination plants and toilet to tap plants that use the same equipment, how can the costs to produce be much different?
I think the anti-desal are comparing wholesale costs to retail prices.
Even Debbie Cook signed off on desalination when she was on the water board. Now she champions the anti-crowd for cash for future campaigns. She knows that the majority of the voters do not read those reports.
You honestly think that it’s the people opposing Poseidon who are greasing the skids for later fundraising? How darling.
@ cook:
Desal is much more expensive because Reclaimed doesn’t have near the volume of salts that ocean water does and requires tons more energy to process.
ps-which ever of the Wineships is commenting, they have no idea what they are talking about. (or maybe they do, and have an agenda)
The ocean barrier is replenished to keep ocean water from fouling the aquifer. It sounds like they want that to occur, to make their Desal more viable.
Reclaimed and Desal are fairly identical in purity. Again – sounds like fable to make their Desal seem more viable.
Percolation recharge into the aquifer does not add more pollutants. Again, more fable. On the contrary, it is a proven method of reducing them.
:themoreyouknow:
Neil, you can not ascribe meaning or motive to the Winship(s). First you would have to learn Winshipian to decipher the writings. I doubt if you would find it worth your while. I don’t and I studied Egyptian hieroglyphics for three years.
*Yeah guys….we are on the Posiden payroll…..they give us thousands of dollars a week to prop up the concept of mitigating the Western States Water Crisis. We are just thrilled to be allowed to mix with some of the greatest minds in water conservation…..right here in the Greater OC. You are same guys that are thrilled that Cal-trans wants to add Toll Roads on the 405 fwy. You are the same folks that still ingest great amounts of Soy Lecithing every day and blame the Health Care Crisis on President Obama. You are the same people that think Bibi Net-a-yahoo is great guy along with Vlade Putin and Donnie Sterling. It is truly amazing that people don’t actually wonder why you have never come up with one solution to one problem that didn’t involve have your back pocket greased. Hey, but that’s OK…….keep making those payment to Fletcher Jones, Lexus of Newport Beach and Sterling BMW…we love those guys! And any time they can take money out of your pocket and put it into their pockets…..Life is good!
^^
David, I believe this is where you can write “case in point”
Acer foot is 325851 gallons.
.005677 x107 x 30 = 18.25 per month ($1850 desal plant quoted in article)
(cost per gallon x amount used x # of days)
How much do you pay per month for government supplied water? If it is more than $18.50 you are getting ripped off. Or 75 percent of the income is missing.
Anyone have a water bill handy with the price per gallon?
At 1/3 cent per gallon an acre foot comes out to $1,085.08 but the water company says its cost is $450. (Where is the missing $635 per acre foot?)
So take your bill and divide the water charge by the number of gallons used and then times it by 325851 to find the price per acre foot. Post it with the name of the city.
Then we can compare apples to apples.