More than a decade ago, the Board of Directors of the Southern California Water Replenishment District (WRD) set out on a monumental mission: to create a water source that withstands harsh situations and is local for the replacement of groundwater.
That project is now a reality, thanks to the Water Independence Now (WIN) program that recycles daily 14 million gallons of water in the city of Pico Rivera (Division 5 of the WRD), in the so-called Albert Robles Center (ARC) of the Water Replenishment District.
“The biggest aspect of this project is that it allows us to be independent of imported water, specifically for replenishment purposes,” Sergio Calderón, director of Division 4 of the WRD, which brings together 43 Southern California cities and four million people.
Division 4, which represents Calderón, includes 12 cities: Bell, Bell Gardens, Commerce, Cudahy, Downey, Huntington Park, Lynwood, Maywood, Montebello, Monterey Park, South Gate and Vernon.
From 2003, the Water Replenishment District Board of Directors initiated the WIN program to protect the safety of the region’s groundwater supplies. WIN is a set of projects aimed at maximizing local stormwater and recycled water resources to replenish, preserve, and protect two of the nation’s most-used urban groundwater basins: the Central Basin and the East Basin.
Historically, a large percentage of the imported water from the Colorado River and Northern California was used to replenish the groundwater basins in the WRD service area: the central basin and the western basin. However, with the completion of WRD’s Albert Robles Center for Water Recycling and Environmental Learning, the agency became fully locally sustainable in 2019.
“This plant has been the largest project in recent years, within a portfolio of projects that make up WIN,” said Calderón. “Before having it, the district usually had to buy imported water to put it in the two basins – two aquifer reserves that are geologically and politically interconnected – in order to offer water to the municipalities.”
In fact, the WIN project includes not only the Albert Robles Center (ARC) of the Water Replenishment District for water recycling and environmental learning, but also the GRIP (GroundwaterReliabilityImprovementProgram / Water Reliability Improvement Program).
These programs also include the expansion of the advanced water treatment station called Leo J. VanderLans ”located in Long Beach, improvements in the water conservation area in WhittierNarrows and the increase in purchases of recycled water for irrigation.
“Currently, in the state of California is in drought and it is important that in our region the agency we represent has become independent of imported water, “said Calderón. “If this drought continues for years, we will be concerned, but not so much.”
The reason, -argument- is “because we know that the Albert Robles Center for Water Recycling and Learning Environmental and other allow us to be independent of recycled water to replenish the two basins, which produce half the water that supplies the needs of the 43 cities that make up WRD and that represent the 10% of the population of California. ”
The official highlighted that the next step to continue maintaining the independence of the Water Replenishment District is to make it independent of the imported water to Los Angeles County and its surroundings as they have done in countries like Israel and Australia.
“They have a closed circuit water system, that is, they use the water, recycle it, clean it and put it back into the closed circuit ”, he commented. “I believe that independence can be achieved in some 10 years. ”
In effect, to close the gap in the coming decades , Israel will continue to save water and increase water treatment, recycling and desalination. There, the quality standards for water and wastewater used in are based on the most advanced international standards of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union ( EU).
The watersheds of Southern California
The Municipal District of Central Basin Municipal WaterDistrict, established at 1952 serves a population of 1.6 million people living in 24 cities in southeastern Los Angeles County, as well as unincorporated areas of the county. It is associated with 40 retail water providers and a water wholesaler.
The area of 227 service of Cuenca Central is governed by five publicly elected directors. Voters in each of the five divisions elect a director to serve for a four-year term.
The West Basin Municipal Water District is an agency of wholesale water supplying imported drinking water to 17 cities and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County throughout its service area of 185 square miles. The agency is recognized for recycled water production, conservation and education programs.
West Basin was created by vote of the people in 1947 to reduce excessive pumping of groundwater and make the local water supply more reliable through new water sources.
“From those years it was known that, as a society, a greater quantity of water was used than mother nature could replace or replace so much easily, ”said Sergio Calderón.
For 1948, the West Basin became a member agency of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and began selling bulk water that was imported from the Colorado River .
Therefore, during the great drought at the end of the decade of 1980 and early in 1990, the West Basin Board of Directors worked on the development of new supplies of local water systems that include the recycling of wastewater for irrigation and industrial use, and the implementation of effective water conservation programs.
According to the United States Drought Monitor, nearly the 98% of California currently experiences drought conditions, and approximately 75% of the state faces extreme drought conditions. Climate change and these conditions play a key role in water scarcity.