Signal Tribune Newspaper

At a “State of the District Breakfast” last week, Water Replenishment District Board President Albert Robles explained why the agency must use more storm water as well as recycled water to replenish the basins.

By Nick Diamantides
Staff Writer

California has experienced three years of consecutive drought, which has significantly reduced the state’s supply of water. While Southern California’s need to import water from the north and from the Colorado River has increased, the availability of imported water has decreased and become more expensive. To meet these challenges, the Water Replenishment District (WRD) is in the process of implementing a strategy designed to increase the amount of water contained in the area’s groundwater basins.
Part of that strategy includes allowing highly treated water from sewage treatment plants to seep back into the underground basins, which supply drinking water to the region’s four million residents.
On August 27, WRD held it first-ever “State of the District Breakfast” to explain the current condition of Southern California’s water supply and to outline some of the actions WRD will be taking in the next few years. About 80 people attended the event at WRD headquarters, 4040 Paramount Blvd., in Lakewood. Audience members included officials from several of the 43 cities served by WRD, as well as members of the agency’s board of directors and administrative staff.
In spite of the fact that voters approved the creation of WRD in 1959, many people do not even know the agency exists, much less the vital role it plays in ensuring a clean, reliable supply of water for the residents and businesses of the region. WRD’s current annual budget is $46 million, but none of that money comes from tax revenues. Rather, the agency charges an assessment to the 110 groundwater pumpers that draw water from the underground basins. Those pumpers include cities and other agencies.
WRD manages the West Coast Groundwater Basin and the Central Groundwater Basins. Those two geographic areas roughly encompass the area south of Los Angeles and west of Orange County. Even before WRD was created, groundwater use in southern Los Angeles County exceeded nature’s ability to replenish it.
The agency was established to deal with years of over-pumping that had caused severe saltwater intrusion into the basins and a significant lowering of the water table. Since its founding, the WRD has been replenishing the basins with storm water collected from the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel rivers and with water imported from Northern California and the Colorado River. The replenishing is accomplished by pumping the water onto spreading fields that allow the water to seep down into the underground basins. In more recent years, the WRD has also pumped filtered and purified water from sewage treatment plants onto the spreading fields.
During the breakfast, WRD Board President Albert Robles explained why the agency must use more storm water as well as recycled water to replenish the basins. “We cannot have a prosperous economic future here in Southern California without a significantly different water resources equation,” he said. “As report after report has indicated, the economic viability of not only Southern California, but all of California, is dependent on a reliable supply of water.”
Robles noted that the region uses about 235 billion gallons of water per year, and for many years 60 percent of that water has been imported from Northern California and from the Colorado River. He added that the region can no longer expect to get that amount of imported water. “Those sources have been permanently curtailed,” Robles stressed. He explained that environmental regulations and court decisions have significantly diminished the amount of water flowing to Southern Californian from the north, and ten years of drought plus increased demand from other states and Mexico have sharply decreased the amount of water available from the Colorado River.
“Our water resources equation needs to change now,” Robles said. “We should not allow another year to go by where clean, almost pristine water during a wet year is not captured and stored.”
Robles spent about 15 minutes detailing some of the actions WRD has taken in recent years to increase storm water collection and the use of recycled water. He noted that WRD has partnered with the Los Angeles County Sanitation District and the Upper San Gabriel Municipal Water District to expand the use of highly treated recycled water for groundwater replenishment. “In doing so, we can eliminate our dependence on imported water from the drought-plagued Colorado River and the environmentally sensitive Bay Delta,” he explained.
After Robles’s presentation, WRD General Manager Robb Whitaker described some of the agency’s ongoing projects, but he focused primarily on the Groundwater Reliability Improvement Program (GRIP), calling it the backbone of the agency’s effort to achieve water independence. Whitaker noted that in the past, 64 percent of the replenishment water was imported and 36 percent was from collected storm water. Today, 22 percent is imported, 39 percent is storm water and 39 percent is recycled water.
Whitaker added that in the future 45 percent of the agency’s replenishment water will come from storm water and 55 percent will come from recycled water. “It’s safe. It’s reliable,” he said. “It is going to ensure the future of our groundwater supplies.” He noted that goal could be achieved in 10 to 12 years, thus eliminating the agency’s need to purchase imported water.
“Make no mistake– we are at a historic moment,” Robles added. “I encourage each and every groundwater stakeholder to work together now to assure a safe and reliable groundwater supply for future generations.”

More Information
(562) 921-5521
www.wrd.org