The construction of a new water treatment facility that will transform wastewater into purified drinking water will soon begin in the San Fernando Valley. The facility will produce 20 million gallons of purified drinking water daily, enough to supply 250,000 people in Los Angeles.
In the coming weeks the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP), in partnership with the LA Bureau of Sanitation (LASAN), will break ground on the Advanced Water Purification Facility (AWPF) at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant (Tillman) located at the Sepulveda Basin.
The purified water will be piped to LA County’s Hansen Spreading Grounds, replenishing the San Fernando Groundwater Basin. After a two-year natural filtration process settling in the basin, the water will be extracted from existing wells and further treated before being delivered to residents’ taps.
“It’s a significant and critical project for LA. We’re talking about a world-class water facility in the San Fernando Valley,” said Jesus Gonzalez, LADWP manager of water resources. “It’s a new sustainable water supply for the city – enough water for a quarter million people.”
The $740 million initiative, called the LA Groundwater Replenishment Project (GWR), has already secured almost $430 million of external funding from local partners, the state and the federal government. The remaining cost will be funded through local ratepayers. However, with voters passing Proposition 4 during the general election, a $10 billion climate bond, Gonzalez is hopeful that more state funding will be diverted to the project.
The city has been recycling wastewater at Tillman for decades, but the treated water has been used to offset irrigation – watering parks and golf courses. It has also been used in what is referred to as “beneficial reuse,” funneling water into the Japanese Gardens, Lake Balboa and feeding the LA River. LASAN will divert more wastewater to Tillman so that it can continue to be treated for environmental use and be treated into potable drinking water through the new facility.
The GRW will be the first time LA wastewater will be purified to a point where it can be used as potable water. It will undergo a number of treatment steps to ensure that the water meets regulations, becoming “so clean, it’s actually distilled water,” said Gonzalez.
“We’re days away from breaking ground on one of the largest recycled water projects in the entire state,” he exclaimed.
The project has taken 18 months to go from concept to production and will be completed by 2027, within three years.
Although the GRW was streamlined with urgency, this is not the first time LA has attempted to build this type of wastewater treatment facility.
The project is actually three decades in the making. “LA was like a pioneer back in the 90s trying to do this work,” said Gonzalez.
The city already has existing infrastructure, such as pipelines, from their first attempt at the facility in the 1990s. However, due to a negative media spin and political holdups, the plan was derailed, causing LA to fall behind places like Orange County, Singapore, Israel and South Africa, which went on to utilize the treatment technology.
“It was unfortunately connected to this three-word phrase, which we hate, toilet-to-tap,” said Gonzalez. “People misused the intention and the safety of the project back in the 1990s, to the point that the project got canceled and postponed. And frankly, it’s set us back 30 years.”
At that time, Gonzalez said LADWP conducted a significant amount of outreach to try and change that negative perception. Those efforts to be transparent and educate the public on the process have even been incorporated d into the design of the new facility.
“We want people to be able to see in and to dispel like that idea of what’s happening in that black box,” said Gonzalez, highlighting the large windows in the design plan renderings.
“What’s important for us about the project, is not just producing water, but the public education piece of this,” he continued. The new treatment plant at Tillman has incorporated an educational space within its design, to teach people “what we do to make water safe here in LA and the history of LA’s water supply.”
Climate change is having a significant impact on LA’s water supply – leaving the city vulnerable because of its dependency on an imported water supply. Almost 90% of LA’s water supply is imported from Northern California and the Colorado River.
According to Gonzalez “in 2022 we almost ran out of water” and had to “implement some of the most stringent water conservation efforts” the city has ever seen.
Diversifying and creating local, sustainable, drought-proof water systems – such as recycled water and stormwater capture – can mitigate against the impacts of climate change.
“Being able to develop a new drought tolerant water supply, or drought-proof water supply, for the city of LA is significant to combat the challenges of climate change,” said Gonzalez. “This project at Tillman is … a first major step, towards developing potable reuse here in LA.”