LVMWD explores reservoir for reclaimed water





Las Virgenes Municipal Water District officials are contemplating a capital improvement project which could help the district make sure no recycled water goes to waste.

The Tapia Water Reclamation Plant in Malibu Canyon treats approximately 10 million gallons per day, converting sewage into treated recycled water that complies with state and federal standards.

During warm weather months, the treated water is used to irrigate parks, golf courses, highway landscapes and public areas. In cooler, wet weather months, the surplus is discharged into the L.A. River or Malibu Creek.

At a meeting on Aug. 28, water district board members examined a preliminary study concerning recycled water storage. Sites under consideration for the reservoir include a 58-acre property near the end of April Road off Mulholland Highway between Las Virgenes and Cornell roads, a 45-acre site called the Hope Reservoir east of LVMWD’s compost plant in Malibu Canyon and a 48-acre parcel in Stokes Canyon north of Mulholland Highway in Calabasas.

The district would have to acquire land and build a dam to create the reclaimed water reservoir.

“The target for additional recycled water demand is 2,360 acre-feet, roughly a quarter of the size of the reservoir in Westlake Village,” said said David Lippman, the district’s director of facilities and operations.

About 4,200 acre-feet of water is discharged into Malibu Creek and L.A. River annually.

Costs to acquire land and build the reservoir and related pipelines would range between $114 million and $153 million. The expenses would be spread over a 50-year period through financing, and the district would seek federal and state grants to defray some of the costs.

The district should work with the Bureau of Reclamation in an attempt to qualify for a federal grant, Lippman said.

Water district director Joe Bowman cited concerns about the expenses and magnitude of the project.

“I’m going to need a lot more certainty of what we’re going to do with recycled water (and to encourage ratepayers to use that water) before we even think of spending $110 million,” Bowman said, suggesting a smaller scale project would be more appropriate.

Bowman added that ratepayers, who don’t want to pay for a new $7-million potable water tank in Westlake Village, will likely oppose additional expenses.

But director Glenn Peterson said the reservoir would provide important benefits. In addition to expanding recycled water use and reducing the region’s dependence on imported water, it would help the district save on discharge permitting costs, he said.

In 2010, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board gave the local sewer treatment plant a new five-year operating permit on the condition that the district would increase monitoring of Tapia’s discharges into the Malibu Creek watershed and reduce the plant’s chemical byproducts by 2014.

Costs to upgrade the Tapia plant and meet the regional water board requirements were estimated at $6 million to $8 million.

“We’re building facilities for the next 50 to 75 years. (This project) will help to extend the shrinking water supply in California,” said Director Charles Caspary.

The district reuses about 30 percent of the water it imports from Northern California. Within the next 20 years, officials anticipate demand for recycled water will increase from 5.9 million gallons a day to 8 million gallons a day.

The reclaimed water reservoir could also help the district meet a state mandate to reduce potable water usage by 20 percent by 2020.

“The problem is we’re throwing good valuable water away. We need more storage,” Peterson said.

Water district officials received and filed the report, but no further direction was given to staff.

During a Joint Powers Authority meeting on Sept. 4, LVMWD officials shared the recycled water storage concept with Triunfo Sanitation District directors. Las Virgenes and Triunfo collaborate on treatment of wastewater because both of their service areas encompass the Malibu Creek watershed.

Janna Orkney, the Triunfo chair, said she and her colleagues are still weighing the pros and cons on whether Triunfo should participate in LVMWD’s water storage study.

“I think it would create too much debt for us,” Orkney said.



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