Carpinteria Advanced Purification Project On Tap
CARPINTERIA, Calif. (KEYT) Lake Cachuma may be spilling now but that wasn't the case a decade ago when the Carpinteria Valley Water District saw the need for a locally controlled drought resistant water supply.
"We learned this lesson in 2016 when Cachuma was a puddle and we were one year away from severe shortages and all the agencies on the South Coast were really stressed about what are we going to do about this drought in 2016 and 2017, "said the district's former General Manager Bob McDonald, "fortunately we had some rainfall that saved us, we can't rely on that in the future, and in the future there is likely going to be a drought that will stress our water supplies and so this will enable us to fill the gaps of droughts in the futures."
On January 14th the board awarded the contract to Walsh Construction that is currently working on a similar project in Calabasas.
Walsh to build the Carpinteria Advanced Purification Project known as CAPP.
"It is a project that will reclaim wastewater that is currently discharged to the ocean and utilize that for drinking water, so we will go through a secondary process, an advanced water treatment process is what they call it, to purify that water and then we will move it through a pipeline and inject it through two injection wells on Linden near St. Joseph Church," said McDonald.
It is different than a desalination plant.
"With desal you have a higher level of salt than with wastewater so its is less energy that a standard desal plant would use," said McDonald, "We are taking wastewater rather than discharging it to the ocean after the wastewater treatment process, we are capturing it and treating it again to a level where we are calling it pure but it is essentially distilled water," said Mcdonald.
In case customers are wondering it is no longer urine or waste.
It potable water, safe for drinking, and taking showers and other household needs.
"Many people don't understand in most cities wastewater treatment plants discharge into rivers and downstream water treatment plants capture that water and treat it that is called adhoc use, we are actually doing an engineered solution that we are making sure we are cleaning the water really well, we are then injecting it into the groundwater basin where it will travel a distance to get further clean and once we pull it out of our wells it is pretty high quality water," said McDonald.
But it doesn't come cheap.
More than a third of the $90 million total capital cost will be paid by grants and customers will see their water bill rates increase by 7.5 percent this year with more increases to follow.
If all goes as planned construction on the 12,000 square foot purification facility at the sanitary district treatment plant will begin this summer and a pipeline will then be linked to wells on Meadow View Lane and Linden Ave.
For more information visit https://www.cvwd.net
Your News Channel will have more on CAPP tonight on the news.
