After producing enough water to serve nearly 74,000 households the West Basin Municipal Water District (West Basin) announced a record year in recycled water production at the Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility.
The facility produced 12 billion gallons of recycled water in fiscal year 2013-14 which was crucial during the onging drought engulfing the state.
As California enters its fourth consecutive year of drought, West Basin’s record production this past year would meet the water needs of approximately 74,000 households. With the approximately 12 billion gallons of drinking water produced, the state did not need to be imported water into Southern California.
Earlier in the year, West Basin also reached another milestone of 150 billion gallons of total recycled water produced at the Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility, which has been operating since 1995.
These milestones in water recycling were due to the facility’s fourth expansion, which was completed in 2013 and increased its capacity to treat wastewater from 45 million gallons per day to 62 million gallons per day. Every gallon of wastewater that is treated at the facility is repurposed and does not go to the ocean.
“West Basin has a state-ofthe- art water recycling program and is the only one in the world that produces five types of ‘designer’ waters to meet our customers’ needs,” West Basin Board President Donald L. Dear said. “We look forward to continuing to increase our recycled water production to help with the drought and provide a reliable, locally-controlled supply of water for coastal Los Angeles County.”
The five types of “designer” waters produced by the plant are: irrigation water (tertiary disinfected); cooling tower water (nitrified); low-pressure boiler feed water (single pass reverse osmosis); high-pressure boiler feed water (double pass reverse osmosis); and indirect drinking water (microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide).
West Basin began recycling water following the droughts of the late 1980s and early 1990s. At that time, the West Basin Board of Directors embarked on a program to diversify its water supplies by adding recycled water and conservation efforts to its water supply portfolio.
Customers using West Basin’s recycled water include Chevron, ExxonMobil and Tesoro refineries; Goodyear Airship Station; StubHub Center; Toyota, Honda and other corporate headquarters; city parks, golf courses and other large landscapes.
Together, these organizations are helping to save billions of gallons of precious drinking water.
For more information on West Basin’s recycled water program, persons interested can visit www.westbasin.org.
West Basin Municipal Water District is a wholesale water district that serves nearly a million people in 17 cities and unincorporated areas throughout its 185-square mile service area.
West Basin is reducing its dependence on imported water through its Water Reliability 2020 program that will double conservation, double recycled water production and add desalted ocean water to its portfolio by the year 2020. Visit www.westbasin.org to learn more.
