Potable water is a term used to describe drinking water. It is the water that flows from your tap that is used for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and bathing. Potable water is clean, healthy, and safe. Potable Reuse is a term used by water professionals and scientists that refers to water that has been previously used but is highly purified through an advanced treatment process to meet or exceed federal and state drinking water standards. This highly purified water can be reused for human consumption. After it is purified, the reused water blends with other supplies and is held in a human-made or natural storage location, like Las Virgenes Reservoir, before being treated one last time and delivered through a pipeline distribution network for consumption. Potable reuse and purified recycled water are both terms interchangeably used to describe high-quality sources of drinking water. 

No. There is an abundance of research and peer reviewed studies that have proven the efficacy of the multi-barrier approach to purifying recycled water.  Recently, an article published in Nature Magazine confirms the safety of purified recycled water and asserts that "Potable reuse, the process of treating wastewater to drinkable standards, offers a reliable and sustainable solution to cities and regions facing shortages of clean water," such as the Las Virgenes-Conejo region.  The National Research Council (NRC), an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, published a 2012 study (www.nap.edu/catalog/13303/water-reuse-potential-for-expanding-the-nations-water-supply-through) that closely examined potable water reuse. The study concluded that the safety of advanced treatment systems for potable water reuse and the equal or greater quality water from such systems compared to waters across the United States.

Constituents of emerging concern (CECs) were closely monitored prior to a proposed expansion of the facility. Test results showed that the advanced treatment either completely removed CECs or removed them to levels that could not be detected (Read this report from Orange County’s Groundwater Replenishment System: Water Quality Monitoring and Facility Expansion in the Face of Changing Regulations).

The JPA’s proposed advanced treatment process will also undergo extensive testing at a demonstration scale. We anticipate that it too will remove hormones, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products from the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility effluent to sub-nanogram (ng) per liter levels or to levels that are not detectable.     

At these low levels, expert research teams and public health regulators have documented the safety of the water supply, demonstrating that the concentrations of such trace chemicals, if detectable, are orders of magnitude lower than a biological response or health impact level. As one example, ibuprofen (e.g., Advil) can be found in wastewater at over 2,000 ng/Liter (0.002 milligrams/Liter or mg/L). Water purification technologies, such as those to be tested by the JPA as part of the Demonstration Project, reduce ibuprofen to less than 1 ng/L (99.95% removal). To put this into perspective, knowing that one dose of ibuprofen is 800 milligrams, a person would need to ingest 800 million liters of advanced purified water to receive a full dose of ibuprofen – the equivalent of having to drink 320 Olympic-size swimming pools all at once.  Since the average person needs about 2 liters of water per day, it would take one person more than a million years to drink that amount of water. 

First, the Joint Powers Authority (JPA) will no longer be permitted to discharge recycled water to Malibu Creek as it has since the late 1950s. Regulations related to discharging treated wastewater to creeks and rivers has become increasingly stringent and water utility providers, including the JPA, will be required to clean the recycled water to such an extent that it will exceed current drinking water standards. The capital investment and additional ongoing operational costs to do this would cost more than the planned Pure Water Project Las Virgenes – Triunfo (PWP). Customers would not receive any benefits from the money spent to upgrade the treatment technology at Tapia, needed to achieve the new strict discharge regulations. The highly-treated water would flow into Malibu Creek and lost to the ocean.  Since the requirement is to treat water to such a high standard, it makes sense to beneficially reuse that water to create a locally sourced water supply.

Second, the JPA currently relies 100% on water imported from Northern California through the State Water Project (SWP). In times of minimal rainfall and below average snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, water supplies from the SWP become strained, reservoir levels drop, and allocations to agencies that rely on this water are cut. During the last drought emergency that ended in 2016, the JPA was required to reduce consumption by a staggering 36 percent compared to what was used in 2013. Considering current drought conditions, this project will allow us to eventually generate up to 5,000 acre-feet of pure water annually (one acre-foot is equivalent to a football field with one-foot of water in depth) or about 1.6 billion gallons. By not relying entirely on the SWP, the PWP provides an additional and reliable source of water for our region.

See the additional technical reports and summaries in our digital media library at ourpureh2o.com.

Just about. The water we use today has been reused over and over again by Mother Nature. Even glacial water was used by the dinosaurs. Water reuse happens daily on rivers, streams and all other bodies of water. If you live in a community downstream of another, chances are you are reusing water from the community upstream. This phenomenon has been called 'de facto' or unacknowledged potable reuse. In fact, did you know that the imported water we receive from the State Water Project (SWP) includes treated wastewater from communities, like the City of Sacramento, that discharge to the river systems that supply the SWP? If this surprises you, remember that there is quite a bit of mixing and blending with natural runoff that feeds these rivers. The wastewater is treated before being discharged and then treated again at water treatment plants before being served to customers. The fact is, there is no 'new' water, it has all been recycled since the beginning of time.

The multi-barrier water purification process has been successfully used at the Orange County Groundwater Replenishment System since 2008 and before that at Water Factory 21. Orange County now produces 100 million gallons of purified recycled water per day – enough water to supply over 850,000 residents.  To date, they have produced over 278 billion gallons of pure drinking water and counting.  Other locations with long term water purification programs include Singapore; Perth, Australia; Fairfax County, Virginia; El Paso, Texas; Scottsdale, Arizona; Windhoek, Namibia; Wulpen, Belgium; Gwinnett County, Georgia; West Basin Municipal Water District, El Segundo, CA; Aurora, Colorado; and others. Many places are exploring the use of advanced water purification to determine if it fits their local needs. To see who in the State of California is currently providing or proposing to provide purified recycled water, visit: https://watereuse.org/sections/watereuse-california/potable-reuse-map-of-california/

This process is also used by astronauts on the International Space Station. It is more cost effective to recycle water in space than to send replacement water. Every single pound of material delivered to the International Space Station costs about $10,000. If the average astronaut needs about a half-gallon of water a day to survive, that would cost a little over $41,000 a day per astronaut to deliver new water rather than recycle it. So reusing that water (potable reuse) is what you might call “mission critical.”

Not only will we be able to meet the new discharge limitations to Malibu Creek (by virtually eliminating discharges from the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility) but we will have less dependence on importing water by diversifying our water supply portfolio for customers and businesses. Upon completion of the full-scale project, we will need about 20% less imported water, which will be replaced by the purified recycled water. Less dependence on the State Water Project (SWP) means greater reliability by assuring the tap in your home will always deliver. Earthquakes, which can damage the California Aqueduct and cut off supplies to Southern California, will be of lesser concern because the Purified Recycled Water will effectively extend our local storage and supply capabilities and give us the ability to sustain cut-offs from the SWP for a longer period of time.

Ocean or seawater desalination is not a viable option for our service area for several reasons. The desalination of ocean water will not address the limitations on discharges of treated wastewater from the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility to Malibu Creek. Also, creating drinking water from saltwater comes at a higher price. The biggest cost is the amount of energy used in the purification process. It requires significant energy to remove salt from ocean water, and much less to purify wastewater. While purified recycled water is anticipated to cost about $1,600 to produce an acre-foot of water, desalination can easily cost in excess of $2,500 per acre-foot, depending on the ultimate size of the full-scale treatment plant. Permitting and gaining acceptance from governmental agencies and environmental groups is also more challenging with seawater desalination plants. This is mainly because of environmental impacts associated with energy requirements and the construction and operation of a seawater intake system that could impact aquatic life. It would also be very challenging to locate a desalination facility on land outside of the District's jurisdiction to the south, in the City of Malibu. Desalination is regarded as a 'last option' when considering developing new water supplies. All other options would need to be exhausted before it could be deemed feasible.

There are three main reasons why the Las Virgenes-Triunfo JPA built the demonstration facility first.

The first reason is to test the equipment that will be used in the full-scale Advanced Water Treatment Plant. This allows operators to learn to become experts using the technology to optimize the treatment process, and verify which product(s) from specific equipment manufacturers will provide the most cost-effective and efficient removal method. The Joint Powers Authority (JPA) will also be able to test emerging technologies that could help streamline treatment processes such 'artificial intelligence' systems. The data and water quality test results collected from the demonstration project will provide assurances to the State of California Division of Drinking Water that our full-scale plant will consistently supply safe drinking water to the public when it goes online in 2030. We cannot rely on the test results from other advanced water treatment demonstration projects because the components in wastewater vary from place to place depending on the original source of the water, weather, types of industry, etc., which can impact the performance of the treatment equipment.

The second function of running our demonstration facility is to give our water treatment operators an opportunity to train in the proper operation and maintenance of the equipment that will be used. Training is critical because the water treatment plant operators ensure that the equipment runs efficiently and produces purified recycled water that will meet or exceed all State and Federal requirements for drinking water.

The final reason for our demonstration facility is to educate our customers about purified recycled water, its importance to our region, and how we are going to do it. The facility is available for tours and participants are able to taste the purified recycled water. Prior to investing the funds for building a full-scale plant, it is important that the community is comfortable and we have strong public support the project. Individuals that are skeptical will be afforded the opportunity to become better informed.

The demonstration facility was completed and began operating in fall 2020. The Joint Powers Authority (JPA) offers regularly scheduled tours for the general public. Register for a tour by visiting the Demonstration Facility webpage.

The cost for building the demonstration facility was about $4 million, which included a demonstration garden/landscape component. For the full-scale plant including pipelines and other project costs, the latest estimate is around $364 million.    

The environmental review has been completed and was accepted by the JPA board in December of 2022.  Final design is anticipated to begin in 2023 and construction is anticipated to start in 2025. 

The timeline for having the Advanced Water Treatment Plant up and operational is by the year 2030. While this seems like it is a long way off, it's just around the corner as far as large scale public works projects go and there is much work to be done. This includes operation and testing of the demonstration facility, educating our customers, pursuing grants and low-interest loans, environmental impact reviews, permitting, preliminary and final design efforts, competitively bidding various components of the project, acquiring rights-of-way and license agreements, building the project, facility start-up and testing and, finally, operation. While it may be possible to complete these efforts sooner, we want to make sure the project is done right, rather than done quickly.