California has been battling its water problem for a while now. The state has gone through four years of the region’s worst drought in the last decade. Being home to more than 39.75 million residents, the state government is exploring numerous ways to solve the region’s ongoing water crisis.

In a significant step that could potentially lead to the construction of one of USA’s largest water recycling facilities, the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) were joined by local, state and the federal water leaders to mark the beginning of recycling operations at Regional Recycled Water Advanced Purification Center.

The demonstration facility, with a 500,000 gallon per day capacity, takes cleaned wastewater that comes from the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant of the Sanitation Districts and purifies it through an innovative process that could substantially enhance efficiencies and reduce costs when it comes to water recycling.

Now, MWD is expected to subject this treatment process through an arduous testing process to make sure that the recycling process effectively eliminates impurities and that the resulting recycled water successfully meets the highest of quality standards.

The testing process would last 15 months and would help agencies further determine whether they should grow the facility into a full-scale recycling plant, which could potentially generate approximately 150 million gallons worth of purified water on a daily basis; enough to effectively serve the state’s industrial facilities along with 500,000 homes.

Chairwoman of the Metropolitan Board, Gloria D. Gray stated that the launch of the facility marks a crucial step in MWD’s endeavor to develop a local water supply that is drought-proof for millions of residents in Southern California. Gloria further added that over the past 20 years MWD has gradually diversified the area’s portfolio of water supply, preparing for climate change by supporting local supply and conservation projects. MWD is now scaling up that commitment to the next level.

Construction of the $17 million demonstration plant started late in 2017. The purification process that is being tested is based on already proven technologies. However, it uses a novel combination of treatment processes; beginning with membrane bioreactors, followed by advanced and ultraviolet light oxidation and reverse osmosis, which could substantially boost efficiencies in treatment.

The Regional Recycled Water Program, including its associated distribution lines are estimated to take approximately 11 years to be constructed, once approved.

Source credit: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/metropolitan-sanitation-districts-launch-water-224400292.html